Creative Loafing relaunch, Issue 2 highlights

[ATLANTA] The second issue of a relaunch always brings tweaks and adjustments, and a creative energy that often the heat of launch week might not allow. Such is the case with the new look for alt weekly Creative Loafing. Here are a couple of section openers that really caught my eye.

They live up to the challenge we gave ourselves in rethinking the design, navigation, and indeed, brand: to create WAY more impact on the opening pages, while maximizing the presence of a new section name/logo, the art on the page, and headline and text, which must remain, due to space constraints. A difficult juggling act, but, the staff gets it right.

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Above is a copy of this week’s cover. I also wanted to share a sample of the new closing page I suggested, and named STOP.

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This was pitched as a companion to the new “contents/index” page I wrote about last week, called START — basically, new bookends for the new “active voice” rebranding that I was hoping would help shake up the market. [You can see the START page design from the debut issue, and learn the thinking behind it, at this previous blog post.] The idea here is to exit the book with a little something extra to look at (a reader submitted photo of the week) and to read (a quote-o-rama). Neither of those elements is an earth shattering innovation, but devoting some space to something a bit relaxed and quiet I thought was a good move. I’d like to see an ad strategically developed for this page – maybe a strip ad – but would like to be careful to avoid crazy colors and fonts (a hallmark of alt weekly ads, alas) that would detract from the presence of the photo, and the white space on the page.

I look forward to seeing more great work out of Atlanta, and to discussing the project at the AAN convention in Toronto on July 17!

Extras:

• Previous post on the CL Atlanta relaunch.
• Important questions to ask when hiring a newspaper redesign consultant or newspaper design consultant.
• Follow me on Twitter.