Today marks the launch of the Sun's new web design, complete with a tidal wave of new online content in all sections. On this site, you'll find videos in Art and Science, podcasts in opinion, blog posts in all sections, and (throughout the site) a brand new look and feel. To mark the event and draw readers onto our site, we decided to make a statement with out front page:

ANNNDDD… we’re back! Another school year, another Sun redesign. The project du jour? Red Letter Daze. Just last semester I ran a series on the new look for Daze . We completely revamped the section’s style for its premiere in a new magazine format.

Well, the recession’s hit America hard folks, and even well endowed institutions like the Daily Sun need to make cuts. Opinion was shaved down to two pages, and Daze will now appear back in tabloid form.

Our task in the design department was to preserve the “look and feel” of the magazine while adopting it to the new format — a longer, more traditional page size. Other changes include fewer color pages.

Last week’s post looked at graphics that appear in the Sun’s new science section, so I figured this week I’d discuss the pages themselves. As already mentioned, Science is among the more “magazine-y” sections of the newspaper, running longer feature stories and interviews. The first page has, so far, almost invariably held a single unified feature (though sometimes multiple stories within this feature).

Darwin Design Photo

Okay, so it turns out I wear quite a few hats down at the Sun. Most people happen to know me for the column I write in the opinion section (sex, politics and Palestine… basically). The majority of my time actually working on the paper however is spent working for the design department. And then there’s a little project I started last semester that goes by the name of “The Science Section.”

The story goes like this: one day I was sitting in the gorge sunbathing with Arts Editor Julie Block ’09 and Design Editor Carol Zou ’09. And I turn to them, and say “you know, the Sun needs a science section.” Three weeks, two staff recruiting sessions, three draft proposals and a few all nighters later, well the Sun had a science section.

Welcome back to Daze of Our Lives…. Oh boy, the puns keep coming! This is Part II in a series about the design of the new (ish) weekend magazine, Daze. Issue two is on stands around Ithaca today! Let’s continue our design blow-by-blow by continuing through the first issue.

One Daze More! Another Daze another destiny! This never-ending road to … yeah sorry, I like Broadway…

For several years The Sun has been mixing things up with different weekend magazines. To recap (briefly), 16 years ago, “Red Letter Daze” was introduced as an Arts magazine to provide Cornell with something a bit lighter and more cultured than breaking stories on gorge suicides. Then, two years ago, Senior Editor Jessica D’Napoli ’08 together with then Managing Editor Rebecca Shoval ’08 created “Eclipse” — a new weekend magazine for The Sun.

In honor of New Years quizzes everywhere, and the publications that shaped this year in the news, CMYK presents the T-time quiz. Match each “T” with the publication that prints it. Most of these T’s have been taken directly from their respective websites… if you dig around on them you’ll be able to sort the answers (though that’s kind of cheating!).

They're all big names in news, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. A couple are dead giveaways… You can post your answers in the comments if you wish. Enjoy!

The following is a funny explanation of a mistake made by our printing press partners, The Leder. John C. Schroeder '74, the Sun's production manager and all around press guru narrates for your enjoyment. Having a print edition of December 6th's paper in hand might help with the explanations:

"If any of you thought the color looked a little odd on the front and back pages of today's paper, you were correct.

Granted, because of the last-night-of-the-semester partying, the last flats got to The Leader VERY late: the last flat was sent just before 4:45 a.m. So The Leader's press crew was rushed.

America has voted and Barack Obama is the new president of the United States of America. Students storm the libraries, cheers erupt in Collegetown Bars, and the staff of the Cornell Daily Sun frolick, drunk, through the Commons into a party held by the Ithaca Workers Council.

The staff heads back to 139 W. State street and up to the board room to hear the election speech. With Obama's word of hope and message of change, we file downstairs to finish up the paper. Time to design the front page.

Assistant Design Editor Munier Salem ’10 writes about what it was like to design at The Sun the night Schedulizer went down.:

Breaking news on State Street! It’s just after 8:00 p.m. down here at The Sun and we’re rearranging the front page to make way for the PeopleSoft debacle.

In a nutshell, the new software Cornell uses to enroll students is slow, buggy and frustrating to work with. Schedulizer.com, a website that aggregates Cornell course roster information and uses it to create optimized schedules for students, has had enough with the new PeopleSoft, and it has shut down the website indefinitely for its Cornell clients.