A regional daily has increased pagination and introduced new sections after being relaunched with a new look.
Sheffield daily The Star unveiled its new look to readers yesterday with 24 extra pages of content over the course of a week.
The Johnston Press title has been redesigned under the final phase of relaunches at the regional publisher, which will see all its titles given a new look by the middle of the year.
Other titles in the group which have unveiled revamps this week include the Lancashire Evening Post and the Belfast-based News Letter, which has also launched a new-look website.
Writing about the relaunch, Star editor Jeremy Clifford wrote: “We have worked with some of the best designers in the world to come up with a new look that makes The Star modern, fresh and bright, evolving the design of your newspaper.
“However, we have gone far beyond just giving The Star a new design.
“We have pored over our content to see what we can improve, listened to our readers to hear what they like and what they would like more of and added new sections and supplements.”
The new-look Star will feature new pages of community news, nostalgia features, good-news photos, a new Style supplement and a revamped Class Act pullout on local schools.
At the News Letter, both the paper and the website have been relaunched in an “exciting week” for the title.
Johnston Press launched its first new-look website last month at Portsmouth’s The News and it will be rolled out across the group over the coming months.
The News Letter’s site has a new navigation to help users find their way around, with a new What’s On section and an improved player for its videos.
Tweets, offers and services are also more prominently displayed, along with contact information for staff at the title, and the changes were made following research with readers.
In an article about the new site, editor Rankin Armstrong said: “I’m delighted to be able to offer this significantly improved experience for our desktop website users.
“I really believe our new-look site will help our audience to find and enjoy our great online content and services.”
The News Letter’s relaunched paper includes journalist and broadcaster Lynda Bryans as a new weekly columnist, and extra content across news, business, features and sport.
And the Lancashire Evening Post’s new-look title includes a new lifestyle supplement called Your Life.
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What a shame JP chose to work with some of the best designers in the WORLD, and not those in the UK, or preferably for The Star, in Yorkshire. There was surely a team that could have been assembled from the most talented of all the group’s designers to work on relaunches. (Saving both money and jobs).
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A shame the Star didn’t expend as much effort on the meaningless splash headline as they did on the redesign.
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I can’t knock the enthusiasm and determination, similar to the MEN around here. But I’ll say it every time, print is dead. It’s delaying the inevitable as the old die off and the young (and many older people) access their info elsewhere, if they are interested in where they live at all. It’s a crying shame but a fact. I’m a newspaper man through and through, but I don’t buy newspapers any more. I just don’t need to.
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I must echo the above comments – a lot of the now redundant JP staff would have come up with a much better headline/front page design. It looks like a pretty weak story – how many readers will want to turn inside for more?
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This out-of-kilter page – with its confused headline, over-sized mugshot standing in for a proper picture, and lack of any body text to sustain the poor old reader – doesn’t look so different from what some of the worst designers in the world would have done with it.
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Who are these ‘Best Designers in The World’? – Can we have some names? World class design doesn’t come cheap – An although this looks cheap, Very cheap – it probably wasn’t knowing JP’s ability to throw money away.
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Not impressed with the ‘new look’. It’s the content that matters, and, sadly, for a long time now the content of The Star in terms of quality and quantity has been well below the standards set in the good old days. For me, it’s not just about what appears, but what is missing –and when you know the local scene you soon spot what stories have been missed! The Star got rid of too many of its best journalists –the people with experience and an intimate knowledge of the local scene.
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Extra pages! Enjoy it while it lasts!
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