A whole new Chicago Sun-Times in print and online

The Chicago Sun-Times debuted a fully redesigned newspaper and website this Wednesday, March 28, eight months after a diverse coalition of individuals and organized labor groups bought the newspaper.

The redesign is a collaboration between the Sun-Times and Ogilvy, one of the largest marketing and communications companies in the world.

“I’m grateful to everyone at the Sun-Times and to the superb team at Ogilvy for the hard work they did together so that we can better communicate with our readers,” Sun-Times CEO Edwin Eisendrath said. “We’re debuting a more straightforward and cleaner look both in print and at suntimes.com, and serving up content in a more organized way on both platforms.”

The news organization’s transformation isn’t just happening in print. It’s advancing digitally, too, with a new news app and podcasts on race relations, sports and more.

Led by Carol Fowler, Senior Vice President for Digital News Products, the Sun-Times also is now broadcasting full-scale live video programming at suntimes.com. A recent Democratic gubernatorial forum and #suntimeslive election night show drew more than 120,000 viewers. A new food series hosted by legendary Chicago broadcaster Linda Yu and neighborhoods coverage anchored by Ji Suk Yi, formerly of ABC7’s “Windy City Live,” also are planned.

The new Sun-Times logo incorporates a star from the Chicago flag. That’s a nod to the Chicagoans in every neighborhood who’ve helped keep the paper in business by reading it each day and coming to its website; to the businesses that advertise with it, and to the investors who fund its work — individuals as well as organized labor groups.

“Our redesign goes beyond the look and feel of the paper. We are taking back our editorial voice,” Sun-Times Editor-in-Chief Chris Fusco said. “Gone are pre-produced pages from USA Today. Instead, our editors, all with deep experience in this city, will be in complete charge of our news product, including nation-world and business coverage more relevant to Chicagoans.”

In the past few weeks, the Sun-Times has brought back its “Weekend Plus” Friday section, giving readers a broad offering of events for weekend fun and providing the city’s best coverage of arts, music, culture dining, movies and TV. The Sun-Times also is now producing glossy 64-page “premium content” magazines, the first two celebrating the Illinois bicentennial and the city’s love affair with the Cubs and White Sox.

The redesign of the Sun-Times website mirrors the newspaper in terms of headline fonts and type style. Sections including sports, nation-world and business are color-coded to match the colors of the section toppers in the paper. Web photographs are larger, too.

Online readers will see more stories told with audio, video and interactive graphics. And there’s a new section of the website called “Working” — a collection of news articles and analysis about the topics most relevant to the lives of working women and men of Chicago.