First look -- Sun Sentinel redesign

That's freakin' solid.

Sad, but solid.

 

That's SouthFloridian to them...

 

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the bad grammar in the hed:

HEY, WHERE'S OUR REBATE CHECKS?

Hey, where is our rebate checks? No!!! Where ARE our rebate checks. Cut them all!

 

Forget looking here. I went over to the place where true designers go -- comicbookguy.com -- or whatever it is supposed to be. His head hasn't exploded yet, so it must be OK...

 

Looks very similar to a redesign of the Colorado Springs Gazette a few years back. They went with a big 'G' in the upper corner. I think it lasted six months before going mostly back to the previous format.

Guess that means it didn't work there. I have no reason to believe the outcome in South Florida will be any better.

 

It isn't awful.
It isn't great.
They use typography as an art element, which seems more like a small paper where you don't have wire photography to lean on. Like playthrough, I saw similar designs more than a decade ago. All refers and a one-story centerpiece.
I don't like how they eliminated the flag. The button logo is fine, if it used in conjunction with something else but it isn't in this case.
If the idea was to be completely different than the competition, I would say it was a success.

 

The cheeseball "Help Team Consumer Report" label that they so blatently stole from last place TV newscasts everywhere is what set me over the edge, I think. Why not go all the way and use "Stay classy South Florida" as a page-topper?

 

First thing I saw, first thing I thought.
If the story has a mistake in the lede, why read it? If the top headline in the whole paper has a head bust, why read it?

 

Well, not to excuse it whatsoever, but I don't let a typo or even a head break stop me from reading a story. That's a nice old journalism saw -- doesn't really work that way.

Property taxes cot 30 percent

I'm not going to read that? Sorry.

That said, this is now my "new" paper, and just continuing an unhappy trend.

 

I'd still read it...it's just a pet peeve of mine and a mistake someone shouldn't have made. Especially on something going on display to show off a redesign.