We Have an Issue: Yup, Something’s Different

The story behind our new print redesign

By Kimberley Jones, Fri., Jan. 26, 2024

Only one page into the paper, and your Spidey sense is already tingling, right? Something’s different here. Indeed, it is: In this week’s issue, we launch a redesign of our print newspaper. This certainly isn’t the first redesign in our 42-year history, but it’s one of our most substantive. I’ll walk you through some of the changes.

For starters, we’ve moved to a cover story format to really throw our muscle – reporting and design – behind a single long-form story or package each week. There, we’re going deep. On the other end of the spectrum, we’re expanding our Headlines section, which rounds up the week’s news in bite-sized chunks. Starting this week, that will also include developments in all disciplines, including music, the arts, restaurants, and more. The goal is to give our readers an even wider bird’s-eye view of the biggest news of the week.

We’ve been without a regular Music column in the paper since Rachel Rascoe retired “Faster Than Sound” and moved into the Music editor chair. In this issue, Carys Anderson picks up the mantle with “The Off Beat” and widens the scope to cover not just music but broader culture topics in Austin. Carys’ column will be in the paper every other week, rotating the space with Kevin Curtin’s cannabis column. As editor of “The Austin Chronic,” I never quite know what Kevin is going to hand in – a guide to holidays-with-the-family stoner etiquette or a field trip to the state’s busiest medical cannabis facility? – but I know I always want more, which is why I’m thrilled that his column will now run a full page. Look for that next week.

The new Calendar section, under the stewardship of Qmmunity Editor James Scott, marks maybe the biggest structural change to the paper. Gone are page after page after page of so-tiny-it’s-tough-to-read event listings. Instead, we’re presenting in print a curated, chronological list of about 30 events a week and going a little deeper on why we recommend them to our readers. (You’ll find even more listings online every week at austinchronicle.com/events.)

The Calendar section is also where you’ll find familiar faces – Day Trips, Qmmunity, Music Notes, and – back next month – Eric Goodman’s Austin FC column, “The Verde Report.” The section concludes with Club listings and Roadshows, compiled by Derek Udensi. It’s a smaller collection of shows than you’re used to seeing in print, but you’ll be able to find the complete Club listings online at austinchronicle.com/events/music.

Next up: a Reviews section that’s going to look a little different every week. This week, we’re covering a restaurant, a concert, an art opening, and new music tracks. (You can expect a film review most weeks, too; this just happened to be the once-in-a-blue-moon that no new release dropped. A good excuse to take in a repertory screening at AFS Cinema!)

All the months we were hatching this redesign, we jokingly referred to the last section of the paper as Fun & Games, and, well, the name stuck. That’s where you’ll find the crossword puzzle, comics, “The Luv Doc,” “Mr. Smarty Pants,” and our monthly legal column. “The Common Law.”

That is a lot of change all at once, and I’ll tell you the same thing Art Director Zeke Barbaro and I have been saying to staff: This is a work in progress. We’re still figuring it out, and we’re going to figure it out together. But a change was long overdue. For many years, we’ve been trying to put out more or less the same paper every week that we did 5, 10, and 20 years ago, with a dramatically smaller staff, while simultaneously making the transition to being a daily news outlet with new stories online nearly every day. This was a long time coming, and we’re excited about where we’re going to next. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.