A new-look Halifax Evening Courier is set to hit the streets next week, with a “cleaner, brighter and more uniform” design.

The changes follow a gradual revamp of the broadsheet’s content, which began when editor John Furbisher joined the paper last July.

John said: “The content has been developed quite a bit and now has a newsier tone, and we are more effective at investigating and campaigning and championing local issues.

“We then reached a point where the content had been improved sufficiently that we could start looking at the design.”

From Monday the Johnston Press-owned Evening Courier will have a new masthead, and a more ‘modular’ design using a very limited stable of fonts, together with a collection of new and revamped ‘added value’ platforms.

These will include Sport Today, a new tabloid sports supplement on Mondays; Buy & Sell Today, a tabloid-size free-ads supplement on a Tuesday; Jobs Today on Wednesday, Motors Today on Thursdays, Property Today on Fridays and Television Today on Saturdays.

John said: “In the case of jobs, property and motors, the ‘Today’ name is a direct branding link with our parent-company’s websites, while in the other cases there is no website but we wanted to continue the branding.”

In the run-up to launch, the Evening Courier has been running a promotional campaign to inform readers of the changes, under the banner ‘The voice of Calderdale is about to get louder’.

Adverts are currently running on local radio, posters can be seen on billboards and on the sides of buses, newsagents’ shop fronts are gradually being rebranded – and editor John even makes an appearance on a pop-up advert on the paper’s website.

John said: “We have kept all the local and community news, but it is now more structured and easier to find, giving us space to devote to high-impact pictures.

“If you look at the present product one of the problems is that there is a lack of consistency from page to page. We’ve tried to bring more conformity to the paper and I think we’ve done it.

“We’re hoping the paper will be even more appealing to readers and will give even better value for money.”