Behind the Kansas City Business Journal redesign

Newspaper design expert Mario Garcia has posted page examples of the redesign at the Kansas City Business Journal and parts of an interview between Jon Wile, creative director for American City Business Journals, and publisher Joyce Hayhow, and editor Brian Kaberline about the nearly year-long transition their news operation has gone through.

Here is an excerpt:

Q: What do you think the most rewarding part of this process was?

Joyce: Being at the helm of an organization going through transformational change challenged my leadership ability. I found that to be both exhilarating and extremely rewarding.

Brian: The most rewarding part of the process was seeing the various elements all come together. It was seeing a digital-first approach to reporting provide the fodder for more in-depth and analytical coverage in print, and a lean-forward/lean-back philosophy lead to a greater emphasis on readers’ needs.

Q: What was the hardest part of the process?

Joyce: Regardless of your newsroom’s buy-in to the philosophical idea of being a digital-first news operation, the old habits are very difficult to let go. For the period of time our reporters and editors tried to break news online while holding on to much of our traditional print content, stress levels went through the roof.

Brian: It’s easy to talk about change, and incremental change is easy. What’s hard is stripping away years of deeply rooted habits and biases and trying to approach tasks in a completely fresh way.

Read more here. The Kansas City Business Journal is the fifth of the 40 weeklies that are part of American City Business Journals to launch a common style of storytelling, story hierarchy and visual presentation.