Introducing the New Print Edition of City Paper
In the winter of 1996, Washington City Paper hit the streets with a new look, starring the logo we used until last week. At the time, we had just switched from old-fashioned cold type to desktop publishing. The wholesale redesign was an effort to take advantage of opportunities provided with that change.
It’s with a bit of wistfulness that I now say goodbye to that logo, which I designed. But a change was necessary. Fifteen years later, we’re adapting not to a new technology—technology nowadays tends to bypass print altogether—but to a new page size. Our old design was made for a paper roughly a third bigger than the current version. It all seemed a bit unwieldy on the smaller sheet we currently use.
The paper on streets this week offers a more compact logo and a modular layout that will let us tell readers more—on the cover, and inside. The new design permits us to once again feature uncropped images by our brilliant staff photographer, Darrow Montgomery. And inside, smaller margins and signage gives us the room to provide more content and bigger pictures.
In this redesign, we’ve also done some visual untangling and reorganizing—for example, separating our comments section from the news spread. Overall, we hope it’s a bit less fussy, more urban, and able to do a better job showcasing City Paper’s provocative content.
For all the obvious visual differences you’ll note, what’s most important about the new design is not merely cosmetic. While we’ve kept our most popular features, we’ve also added new items to make the paper a more valuable and enjoyable read:
- Chatter. With this issue, the paper brings back a dedicated reader’s page, where our editors will curate the most interesting responses to City Paper reportage from snail mail, e-mail, Twitter, and around the Web.
- District Line. We’ve replaced the generically named “News” section with a handle that’s familiar to anyone who has read the paper for more than a few years. In addition to traditional City Paper offerings like Loose Lips, Housing Complex, and Cheap Seats, District Line will also be where you’ll find City Desk, a page housing short news and informational items and the Slice-of-D.C. photos we used to run on page three. The section also has room for occasional first-person narratives or analytical pieces that have been longstanding City Paper traditions, but never seemed quite at home under the “News” banner.
- Arts Desk. Like City Desk, this irregular page in the arts section, debuting later this month, will serve as a home for short reviews and features. You’ll find One Track Mind here—or one of a variety of new short pieces we’ll unveil over the next few months.
- City List. You’ll now find our Critic’s Picks and City Lights picks mixed into the listings sections. We’ll break music down by day of the week, which will enable readers to quickly find out who’s playing tonight.
- Comics Page. Like many of our readers, we were sorry to see the paper’s comics go a few years ago. Starting next week, they’ll be back, on a single dedicated page that will feature Derf’s excellent The City, Shawn Belschwender’s Clown Time, David Malki’s Wondermark, and Michael Kupperman’s Up All Night. You’ll still find Dirt Farm in its usual place.
- Website. We will be revisiting the website design and functionality later this year, but we couldn’t wait to implement the new look here as well. We’re also launching a new and improved online listings search this month—a major upgrade.
Finally, while the big type is transformed, you’ll find the small words are still 100 percent City Paper—and they are still set in Monotype’s News Plantin, the paper’s body font since long before I first arrived in 1995. The body copy is the same size and leading as before the redesign.
A newspaper design is a bit like a set for a play—it might be attractive or interesting on its own, but its primary job is to support storytelling. I’m looking forward to helping to tell a lot of new City Paper stories.
Jandos Rothstein
Creative Director
Washington City Paper
8:45 am
Love it! The only thing I would change is the ad on the top left hand corner... I wouldn't remove it altogether but I would try to make sure your logo is on TOP of it instead of below it. 'Cause, you know, you can't have an "ASHINGTON" city paper. ;)
Please take my comment constructively. Just trying to help! Hugs.
8:56 am
agree with CMC. it's kind of strange that on the first day we get to see your new header, it's partially obscured.
on the website, will the favicon remain salmon, or are you changing that too? i'm still seeing the salmon one (i like it - no one else uses that color, so your tabs stick out when i have a few open in my browser).
9:00 am
Lookin' good, good lookin'!
9:10 am
i like it a lot. clean, effective. and i think the 'w' being obscured is okay. it's understood that it's not 'rashington' or 'bashington'... maybe it's a good inside joke.
either way, big fan of the new layout.
10:27 am
I think it looks great but wondering why theres so much floating white space under the title of the main story?
11:06 am
Thanks for all the kinds words. The Triangle will not be on the cover every week, but when it is, a few W's will, alas, be sacrificed.
12:45 pm
Very cool. Congratulations!
2:04 pm
New look, same crap!
2:07 pm
Looks great, everyone. Congrats!
3:12 pm
I love the new redesign as well. As far as the logo, I agree that it should not have been covered up on its BIG debut. That's just like me unveiling my brand new facelift with a bandage or two still attached. In any case, perhaps a simple fix next time would be to nudge "Washington” a few spaces to the right when using the triangular ad?
3:40 pm
It looks awesome, guys!
4:02 pm
Cover is gorgeous, can't wait to flip through it. Good show.
4:18 pm
oh Rick - you never change. I love we all can count on you and your big mouth =)
5:10 pm
nice job --- clean, attractive, sharp.
6:33 pm
Looks great! And thanks for the comics.
8:07 pm
Concerning the ad in the top left that might cover up the "W" in Washington. Just center the word "Washington" above the words "City Paper." Simple. And better.
9:17 pm
OK, I do like the new format and design, when I saw it's announcement I held my breath that the horrid graphic that graces Savage Love would replaced. Sadly, that was not the case.
Please, I pray to the gods of the graphics that Mr Savage get a column graphic that does not look like it was contrived from some 10th Graders idea of what sex is all about. Dan Savage is advanced, relevent, forward thinking and witty. That childish graphic is none of those things - and it's VERY hetero-centric. Please, for all the Savage Fans out there, give this man the graphic he deserves and not this lame-ass embroidered sampler.
9:54 pm
great look. it fits just right.
6:31 am
PC: what are you talking about? there is no graphic included with the savage love column in the print edition.
10:17 am
Why change? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The new "design" is horribly, incredibly, ridiculously cold, bland, ugly, ridiculous and just plain terrible. Why do this? The older designs--actually, the design prior to 1986 remains the best--still remain far better than this new cold, bland, lifeless, terrible redesign.
Besides selling out to some equity fund and cutting the size and cutting story lengths and cutting back in every way, now there's this cold, bland, lifeless design.
Are the owners of the Washington City Paper just dead-set on slowly, deliberatively, assuredly killing the quality of this paper, bit by bit?
Bring back the old design. The new one sucks.
12:40 pm
The new design feels more generic, less unique than the old one. Reminds me a lot of the Express, with the blocky sans-serif fonts and blue/black/yellow color scheme. Doesn't have the edginess/boldness that has traditionally characterized the City Paper.
I hope you'll reconsider having full-page photos or illustrations on the cover. True, the photos don't have to be cropped in this design, but I think a big full-page photo, even cropped, does more justice to the photograph than a smaller pic that's just one of many elements on the page. WCP has had so many great, creative covers over the years, and this design seems like it will really limit that. I have to imagine that the cover will look basically the same every week, you'll just drop in different photos and text.
Also, the big refers in the masthead (especially the corner one) kind of mess up the "clean" look that you seem to be going for.
I do like the reorganization inside, and I'm glad you didn't change the font for your body text. The "Browns" graphic is great. Looking forward to seeing the comics.
5:43 pm
OK, an Update. I had seen only the On-line version when I commented, and there the offending graphic lives on, as IMGOPH correctly points out, for this edition, the graphic is not in the print edition. I hope that it remains that way.
10:28 am
What is the font of the new logo?