Revisiting an old friend
Some of you might remember when the News & Record looked like this. We had this design for three or four years in the early 1990s. We moved away from it for a variety of reasons. (It was intensely difficult to do, and parts of it we didn't do well. It may have been too revolutionary for us then, even as it looks quaint now.)
Now the designer, Alan Jacobson, discusses readership and design with Mary Nesbitt of the Readership Institute. (Via Romenesko.) As I've said here many times, we've been using the Institute's research for a couple years. It jibes in many ways with what the bloggers who write about newspapers say, too.
I didn't agree with everything Alan recommended here 15 years ago -- I'm surprised and delighted he began this piece with a mea culpa -- but I think he and Nesbitt are on the money.