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Opinion: Reviews of the Redesign

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So how are the critics receiving our A-section redesign?

The Editors Weblog, NewsDesigner.com and the Free Republic offer summaries of the changes, with Free Republic calling it ‘deck chair rearrangement’.

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Kevin Roderick of LAObserved -- a former Timesman himself -- has the most comprehensive commentary, noting that ‘redesigns take time to grow on you. This one, though, has the feel of aiming to please the design pros rather than Los Angeles newspaper readers.’ The Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum agrees, blaming the ‘J-Consultant mafia’ for homogenizing and dumbing down newspaper design across the country and making the Times look a lot like the Chicago Tribune.

JAmussen of L.A. Voice, calling the redesign ‘retro’ and ‘focus grouped into banality,’ wonders why the money and effort spent on the changes didn’t go to reporters. Fishbowl L.A.’s Kate Coe has some words for coming changes to the Sunday Calendar section. The Delicious Pundit thinks the paper is getting dumber in its quest to land on ‘every driveway in the Southland.’ Will Sullivan at Journerdism, for one, thinks the changes were overdue, saying about the old design, ‘I didn’t know papers still layed out front pages like that.’

Martini Republic, however, has better things to do:

While other entities were busy fawning over slight cosmetic changes to the front page of the Los Angeles Times [...] a couple of other papers and blogs this past weekend were busy documenting what’s going on in Los Angeles.

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