THE ADVOCATE,
Baton Rouge, La.

The redesign of The Advocate, a vital force in Louisiana's capital city of Baton Rouge, focused on readers from start to finish.

Typography for the redesign was carefully selected for better reproduction on the paper's aging press, resulting in a dramatic improvement in legibility. Aside from simply looking cleaner, more organized and more modern, goals also included improved photo content, better headlines and breakouts, better navigation and organization. But we also helped the staff refocus more of its attention on its growing suburban market.

“It was time for us to re-examine what we do, and how we do it, and reconnect with the community,” said Carl Redman, managing editor of The Advocate. “The redesign is not just cosmetic. We’ve overhauled some of our news operation and examined some of what we do to better deploy our resources to where our readers are in the outlying areas. This was a direct outgrowth of the redesign and self examination we did as part of that process.”

BECAUSE READERS are at the heart of it all at The Advocate, the paper decided to spotlight four local folks at the top of page one each day. Creative Circle used a similar idea in the redesign of the Herald News in Passaic, N.J., where it worked effectively. While we hated to use the same idea again, publisher Doug Manship felt strongly the concept was perfect for Baton Rouge.

“The whole purpose of the faces is twofold. One is to have the paper connect and reflect the community. This is a way to have our area’s diversity displayed prominently. It’s also a reminder to us who we are serving and the reason we exist,” said Redman.

The redesign incorporates new typography throughout. The body copy font is larger and easier to read. The new headline font is much more efficient, enabling the staff to write more informative and meaningful headlines.

TO ENTICE LIGHT READERS, the new design is more scannable. Readers will find a digest each day on page one: a mix of what’s inside the paper that day, plus other short, interesting news items.

The redesign incorporates other content improvements as well, including an expanded entertainment section, better-organized social coverage, and expanded health news.

And — as with most Creative Circle projects — the project involved lots of management consulting and plenty of training for the staff, which was involved in every phase of the redesign. "Baton Rouge was a bit of an extreme even for us in terms of involving the staff," said Bill Ostendorf, president and founder of Creative Circle. "The entire newsroom staff actually voted on many of the changes, making selections on everything from the page one format to headline type and caption styles. So this is very much their redesign, as it should be."

THE LAUNCH WENT SMOOTHLY. "We made deadline and the first papers off the press looked great. It was a real credit to the staff, which embraced and executed the redesign very well," said Ostendorf.

New presses and lots of other changes are on the way, and continuing redesign improvements will be phased in over the next three years — including a classified redesign and a move to the 50-inch web.

The Advocate has a daily circulation of 97,920 and a Sunday circulation of 123,759. The paper is owned by Capital City Press, a family-owned publishing company operated by the Manship family.

The project was led by Bill Ostendorf and Kristen Powell, who served as lead designer. Bill, Kristen and Ellen Meany, who worked on the classified portion of the redesign, were on hand for launch week. Jennifer Boucher Albers was another key designer on the project, which also involved Kevin Dilley and two other designers.

CLICK TO SEE BEFORE AND AFTER EXAMPLES