Five weeks and counting to the relaunch of The Birmingham Post

By Marc Reeves on Sep 15, 08 07:37 PM in

This is a mock-up of what the Post's new M-site may look like - if we manage to get the dev work, programming and processes set up in time to coincide with the launch of the new compact paper on October 20.

There's a lot to update you on since my last detailed post, so I'll try to be brief. Here goes:

The subject areas for the platform pages have been decided upon, balancing editorial and commercial requirements - and with a lot of help from comments posted here ealrier in the month (thanks to all contributers). I'll detail these soon.
The development of the design for the new format has proceeded apace under the direction of Post Executive Editor Mike Hughes. Our consultants pressed us to adopt some new - but very expensive fonts - and it almost grieved me to decide to go with a set of already installed fonts instead, in order to keep costs down. However, Mike has selected a very elegant set, and I'm very pleased with the overall effect.
The layout principles have been established using a radical approach to the standard grid, with nibs generally running across the top of the page in most sections.
IN another ddeparture from tradition, we have the leader columns across pages two and three.
A 'live' Post People page and daily John Bright column appear on page four, and business proper starts on page five.
The new design is showcased in a dummy being printed on the morning of September 16. If you want me to send you a copy, join the Post's new LinkedIn group for readers here. (First come first served I'm afraid, as we're only printing 500).
Once the dummy is printed, I'll post some page images here
Focus groups and other research based on the dummy starts next week.
Today (Sep 15) we had a planning meeting for our M-site, which in layman's terms is a website specifically constructed to be viewed on the new generation of 3G smartphones (I-Phone, Nokia 95 etc). This will make us possibly the first TRULY multi-platform regional newspaper in the UK, with print, web and mobile offerings all in place.
The marketing plans are coming together, and I will see our agency's detailed execution of their initial ideas on Wednesday (They rather memorably asked if I 'had the balls' to go with their concept. We'll see.)
Commercially, we're developing simple packages to encompass print, web and mobile advertising and sponsorship that are easy for customers to understand.

I feel I simply haven't done justice to the amount of progress the team has made in recent weeks, so I'll endeavour to put up a more considered and detailed post in the next couple of days.

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