THE DAILY GAZETTE,
Schenectady, N.Y.

The Daily Gazette, a family-owned paper in Schenectady, New York, competes in a difficult market. Corporate cutbacks at Schenectady's largest employer, General Electric, have cut deeply into the local economy.

Schenectady's economic troubles, combined with a 1990 redesign and launch of a Sunday paper that proved unpopular with readers, sparked a steady decline in circulation, from a peak of nearly 75,000 to roughly 50,000 today.

The paper's best growth markets now lay in a diverse mix of communities outside Schenectady where it faces competition from entrenched daily competitors based in Albany, Saratoga, Troy and Amsterdam. Circulation efforts in these outlying areas resulted in continuing and expensive subscriber churn. The paper needed help finding a way to resonate with readers.

Tom Woodman, the paper's managing editor, turned to Creative Circle in the fall of 2003 because of our of our reputation for providing strong training programs and supporting family-owned papers. Initially, our mission was to lead a partial redesign of targeted elements of the paper. At first, the management team felt that a design update was all they needed. We also launched some training programs, focusing initially on better integrating photography, reporting and design.

But as the project progressed, everyone realized more had to be done. Management requested more in-depth help – expanded training, a full redesign and stylebook, a resectioning plan, a new zoning scheme and management, technical and strategic consulting.

The result was a broad range of improvements at the paper, including:

• A complete resectioning. Key elements regularly " floated" in the paper. Entertainment, obituaries, business, lifestyles, TV listings regularly appeared in different sections. We reallocated newshole and anchored key features, creating an integrated lifestyles and entertainment section. The new resectioning plan made finding everything in the paper easier and more predictable, and was achieved without an increase in newsprint.
• More aggressive and targeted zoning. Three zones were created, and the new design pounded home the local nature of each zone with large red labels on the nameplate and the sports and local section flags. Newsroom resources were reallocated to increase the number of local stories and a training program was launched to make zoning easier and more productive. Zoned advertising was offered in some areas to make the paper feel more local and to generate new revenue.
• Clear labeling of all local news. Despite a strong commitment in local reporting resources, readers kept saying the paper lacked enough local news. But a content analysis revealed a strong local news package. Local datelines were largely dropped and replaced with 14-point color labels to help readers quickly find news about their towns, teams and institutions.
• Increased use of color. New press capacity gave The Gazette an advantage over some of its competitors, so color was integrated into the design throughout. Color was added to page flags, indexes and other navigation devices as well as columnist logos. Daily, full-color comics were added and more color photos were added on inside pages.
• More indexing and teases. The nameplate, page flags and indexes on section fronts have elements built into them to help editors point out highlights inside each section and to highlight upcoming coverage.
• Workflow improvements. We recommended changes in how the news and sports desks used the paper's Harris pagination system, suggested shifts in staffing in the newsroom and built a new deadline schedule to help accommodate the zoning changes and improve design, communication and deadline performance.
• Lots of training. Improving the design doesn't mean much if the content doesn't match up, so major training efforts will continue to focus on improving communication, coordination, planning and editing for both words and photos. To help the staff handle both the heavier workload caused by zoning and increased pressure to do breakouts and different kinds of stories, Creative Circle will work with everyone on the staff in a wide-ranging, 18-month training program.
• An upgraded design. As often happens in our redesigns, in the end the redesign itself wasn't the main benefit we brought to the table. But the redesign was still extensive and successful. The paper's new nameplate helps simplify their brand by focusing on what they are actually called in the market: The Gazette. The new nameplate is bolder and should help differentiate The Gazette from its stodgier competitors. We added an expanded and more flexible weather package. New sans-serif decks, quotes and captions (set in Relay) were added to speed reading of critical secondary elements. We kept the main headline, agate and body text fonts (all Poynter) but modified settings to make them more efficient and legible.

Most of the new design, along with the resectioning and zoning plans, debuted on January 12th but additional design improvements were phased in over the following six months.

The zoned advertising is selling well and the overwhelming reaction to the redesign is that The Gazette is more local and has more local content. Despite fears that readers would react negatively to the changes, more complained about a faulty puzzle answer on launch day than the redesign. In fact, most callers were positive.

"We are thrilled with our new paper and have gotten an overwhelmingly positive response from our readers," says Woodman. " Complimentary calls and e-mail messages are easily 80 percent positive, and direct comments from people we meet in the community are even better.

"I think we succeeded with our priorities of targeting local news through zoning and helping people find their community's news through design," Woodman says.

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