So we did it again. We changed your newspaper. We up and picked a new editor in chief who trotted around talking about redesigning the newspaper, and then he went ahead and made all these changes without asking anyone.

If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. Right?

Yeah, that’s right. And the Daily wasn’t broken last year – that’s right, too. But when you produce a product that changes every moment of the day, that’s published every night and circulated every morning, it’s easy to lose sight of the big goals. So a few months ago when I started counting down to the big day, I tacked “redesign Daily” on the big to-do list.

And it worked.

It would have been easy to design the new Cavan Reagan Daily. It would have been kind of fun, too. But nobody would have read it. The Daily hasn’t survived since 1890 because the editor in chief – who, yes, changes every year – picked out his or her favorite color and font and slapped onto a few pages. We’ve survived because of our readers. And to continue that survival, we’ve had to evolve over the years.

This redesign is a small step in the large scope of things. We used to print in black and white, on smaller paper and out of a much smaller office. We’ve stumbled along the way, and we’re still learning how to stretch those last few inches to perfection, but it’s been long enough now that we know that the trends that survive are those the readers like.

So one night last year while I was rooting through the desk of one of my managing editors (it’s a reporter thing) and I stumbled upon some pages he’d mocked up for a complete redesign of the Daily, I got excited. I liked what I saw and when I told Charlie, he got excited too.

Then we both got a little scared.

Redesigns aren’t exotic in the world of campus newspapers. As dynamic as the editorial staffs can be, it’s fairly often that an inspired bunch can try to launch a new look or infuse a different personality into the pages.

We’ve seen them fail. Rather than running blindfolded and panicky into our own brick wall of a redesign, we took it slow, took a few breaths, then spent a few weeks thinking about what we were trying to accomplish.

It, of course, came down to pleasing the readers.

To better gauge the sentiments of our readers, we organized focus groups during the summer publication of the Daily. During those groups, several members of the campus community took a few hours to rip into the changes we were trying to make.

I hope what we’re presenting to you today pleases your eyes, your tastes and your need for news about the ISU community news.

Cavan Reagan

is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Bellevue, Neb. He is the editor in chief of the Daily.