Putting together a new look for our pages

January 1, 2006

Article

I know it can seem like we're always after you to do more, make changes, and improve your job or your skills or your practice. And we are. But it's only because we want to help you achieve your goals.

Not that this will make you feel better, but we're always trying to do more, too. We sit down and evaluate the magazine every month, look at the letters we receive, and think about how we can make the next month's issue stronger. And once a year, our team takes two days out of a busy schedule to evaluate our work and set new goals.

Continuously striving to improve helps us stay at the top of our game. And this approach keeps me, at least, engaged. I think it's exciting to come to work and produce the best issue we can—a lot more exciting than I would find it to drag into work and crank out one more average magazine.

Now, most of the changes we make to improve are invisible to almost anyone else. For example, we might decide to find a new source who has particular expertise in human resources. Or we might agree that the next time we include a sidebar we'll try harder to get a picture of the author, so you can see who's giving you that great advice.

But with this issue, we've made a change that we hope is obvious. We redesigned the whole magazine, changing our logo, the type fonts we use, the headline and layout styles, the color palette, and more. As we made the decisions, we looked at the strategies other professional magazines use and talked about how the look of the pages could support our other editorial goals. For example, the new table of contents gives you much more information about what you'll find in the departments, which are often the best-read parts of any issue.

While these changes are aesthetic, we didn't invest months thinking through these decisions just because we thought the pages we printed would look nicer. (Although we do think they look good and hope you do, too.) We made the investment to make the information we present each month more appealing and easier to read—so you get more good advice.

This process has made me think of the discussions we have about hospital design. We see design as a business issue, because clients draw conclusions about your team and the care you offer based on their perceptions of your parking lot, reception area, and exam rooms. In the same way, we think you judge the information we offer partly based on the way we present it.

We hope you find our new design approach both sophisticated and warm. But you, of course, are the final judge. So let us know what you think.

In the months that come, we may see ways to improve on these changes. And when we do, we'll continue to jump on the opportunity to serve you better.