Reactions to the new WSJ design

View the new WSJ design here.

I was treated to quite a surprise last evening as I left work and headed to my regular bus shelter in downtown San Francisco. On the wall in front of me was an ad for the new WSJ -- complete with a revealing mockup of the new front page design.

I was stunned. Here was something that has been six years in the making, very top-secret and with quite a bit of mystique surrounding its launch this morning, all ruined in an instant by a premature display ad.

I was relieved at once to see the familiar "What's News" banner over the two most informative columns in all of the world's newspapers retained. The use of color -- new for the front page -- was luckily very subtle and tasteful, muted shades of creme and blue. And the whole package is still instantly recognizable as the Wall Street Journal. This is good.

So today I had the chance to listen in to my co-worker's reactions to the new look and feel of the paper. One didn't realize it was changing. Another took issue with the color. But most seemed pleased and accepting.

Curious how the design has tested nationally, I headed to Google just now. Some highlights:

Mario R. Garcia of Garcia Media reflects on the redesign.

Here I found a very interesting article in The Guardian (UK) about Dow Jone's continued investment online at a time when most media companies are retrenching. It now counts more than 626,000 paying subscribers to WSJ.com, more than the FT even has for its print edition.

From the Washington Times: "Will everybody be happy today? No. Everyone will not be happy today," said Journal spokesman Steve Goldstein. "The most important thing is that the content has not changed. The new appearance is meant to help readers, to be beneficial to them."

From Newsday: "I don't see any down side to it," Peter Appert, a media analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities in San Francisco, said.

With a $21MM ad campaign supporting its launch, the WSJ also got clever and showed up in Saks Fifth Avenue windows across the country.

Most curious to me is the lack of any mention, much less discussion, of the new WSJ edition at either JD Lasica's New Media Musings blog or Jim Romenesko's MediaNews at Poynter.org. I've come to rely on you two for some of the best media coverage anywhere. Why not this? Even the Online Journalism Review provided some insights.

4/10 Addendum: Jim Romenesko adds a link today to an SF Chronicle story that has Garcia claiming readers were "going to be shocked."

There's also a Poynter feature on Mario Garcia here.

Also, I found a link to the visual for the WSJ's pre-launch teaser ad campaign (which I loved when I ran into it plastered on the side of a dodgy Thai Restaurant a few weeks ago) via TheShiftedLibrarian. Bonus points to anyone who can find the third mock-up. If I had a digital camera with me, I'd run across town and snap it.

Comments

[Rogers Cadenhead]

Poynter MediaNews contains links to three WSJ redesign stories, and has mentioned it previously. I'm surprised it isn't being played up more -- Romanesko must not be a newspaper redesign geek like I am.

[Bryce Payne]

Yeah, I saw and linked to the 3 WSJ stories, but they were buried in with other content. Given the profile of this relaunch, I had expected it would be featured more promiently. Thanks for your thoughts, Rogers.

[Amy Wohl]

WSJ has certainly been giving us lots of advance notice that (a) it was happening (b) we would love it. Once I had assured myself that the front page summary (which I read first thing, every day) was still there I could relax and look at the rest. I'd say, on balance, it's okay. I don't care whether they use colored pictures or not -- color might improve the readability (and comprehension ratings) for some of the graphics. I am having a problem with the WSJ getting longer without the meaningful content getting more useful -- just lots more "stuff." This means I have to spend more time looking through it to get to the industry material I count on reading. I don't think that's an improvement.