STAR PREVIEWS ITS NEW LOOK

The Toronto Star has let the cat out of the bag. While most papers go to great lengths to keep their redesign projects top secret until the big day, the Star rolled out a two-page redesign readers' guide in its Saturday and Sunday editions, complete with images of sample sections fronts constructed on a five-column grid and a new body type sample, more than a week before its May 28 launch. See pdf here


The readers' guide lays out four key changes:
1 'Bigger body type': The Star's custom Torstar Text will increase in size from 9.9 over 10 to 10.25 over 11.
2 'Easier to handle': The Star will gradually move to a 11.5 inch page from the existing 12.5 inch size over the next five months.
3 'Focus on local news': The Star is moving Greater Toronto News "to the front of the line" A-section, made way by creating a new section for world news and comment.
4 'New and improved daily sections': The Star will expand coverage of lifestyles in a new Living section, focusing on health, food, family, relationships and other topics.

In a Saturday Star A2 column, Editor-in-Chief Fred Kuntz admitted that many readers dislike change. "But no newspaper should stagnate," he said. "We will embrace any change that heightens your enjoyment of the newspaper."

"That's why we began this project by improving our understanding of readers -- and seeing how every reader is different. Many will jump to their favourite section first. Some are fans of one columnist, or devotees of certain puzzles or comics. With 2.9 million Star readers a week in print and online, that's a lot of interests to satisfy.

"We conducted in-depth readership surveys, and met with groups of readers in person to review our plans."