Redesign FAQs

What’s the overall design philosophy? The new look could be called ” Modern Classic.” It plays off the best of traditional newspapers, but with a modern, more colorful feel. What you’ll see is a newspaper that has been built with our readers and advertisers in mind. The AJC will be a newspaper for newspaper readers, those with a true affinity for print. The new design balances their needs with the efficiencies we need.

Will the daily and Sunday newspapers look different? Yes, slightly. We know that readers use the paper differently on weekdays and Sundays. Our new design offers a sweep of news and topics quickly on weekdays when readers are busy. On Sunday, it has a more relaxed look that invites readers to settle in and spend some time with the newspaper.

Did you change the fonts? Yes. We’ve simplified our typography, taking our cues from classic American and European newspapers. The primary font, Publico, customized for the AJC by Christian Schwartz, is exceptionally readable and easy on the eyes at all sizes. It is named for the Lisbon, Portugal, newspaper that first used it. Our secondary font, Boomer, is used for information boxes, photo captions and calendars. It was originally developed for AARP.

Is the newspaper smaller? Yes. The redesigned AJC is narrower, printed with soy ink on 100 percent recycled paper. Many American newspapers have narrowed their formats in recent years. The new pages are more compact, but because of denser layout and improved typography, content is not sacrificed. It saves trees and reduces one of our largest business costs.

Who did the redesign? An in-house team that is led by product design chief Will Alford collaborated with Montreal-based Lucie Lacava, a celebrated designer of more than 60 publications across North and South America, Europe and the Middle East.

When was the AJC last redesigned? Changes are nothing new for newspapers. Most go through a facelift about every five years. The most recent comprehensive redesign of the AJC occurred in 1999.

Join the conversation

The inside story behind the redesign: For the next few weeks, newsroom leaders will host an online dialogue about the changes. Visitors to ajc.com/conversation will hear from our design leaders, watchdog editors and others who make decisions about what goes into the paper and how we present it. We’ll talk about how we choose what goes on the front page and how we decide what to cover.

Share your thoughts: We want to hear from the best experts on the newspaper: you, our readers. We’ll answer your questions and listen to your feedback about what we are doing right and what we can improve.

Join us today at ajc.com/conversation.