Trust us, a redesign can be a bit cathartic. The Chicago Reader launches an all new redesign of its print edition, with several events across the city to celebrate the relaunch. It's a marked facelift from the tabloid format in which it's lingered in recent years. The glossy covers and stapled pages suggests more of a magazine than a newspaper, which Creative Loafing chief sales officer Alison Draper told Tribune media columnist Phil Rosenthal is intended to make the Reader less disposable than in the days where folks would pick up copies of "The Old Gray Doorstop" and pocket the music section as a reference guide. In addition to the redesign, including two glossy covers, column names have been dropped in favor of the columnists names and the music section, long one of the Reader's strengths, has been expanded and re-branded. Now known as the "B-Side," Editor Mara Shalhoup told us that the expanded music coverage is one of many links between the paper's past, present and future. more ›

(Ed. Note: We know that the Disqus comment roll out and the decision to switch the RSS feeds to summary mode took some of you by surprise. So we wanted to keep you abreast of the next major change to how you'll be viewing the Ist-a-verse sites in the coming weeks. We'll turn the floor over to Jake Dobkin from here. Jake and Gothamist tech director Neil Epstein are also taking suggestions and answering questions in the comments to the original post at Gothamist. — CS) more ›

In case you haven't noticed - but chances are you probably have - the Chicago Tribune has gone live with its new redesign. It's a bit tab-heavy, but we kind of dig it. To the right side of the page is a feedback button which, when clicked, brings up a window that allows for, well, feedback (pic #3 above). So it seems like it's still a work in progress. Perhaps the biggest grievance we have with the redesign as shifting the "Chicago Breaking News" window to below the main story and, for us, anyway, forcing us to scroll to get to it. But, otherwise, we see some promise in the site's new look. Agree with us? Think we're crazy? Let us know in our comments. more ›

Yes, as we approach 2009, it's redesign time here in the ist-a-verse and the Gothamist, LLC tech team did a bang-up job making us look good. As with all makeovers, though, there are still a few bugs and glitches you'll probably notice, but those'll be ironed out in the coming days. Be sure to let us know what you think of the redesign. We'll be tweaking and updating it over the next couple of days and weeks and we'd love to hear your feedback so detail your issues either here in comments or at tips (at) chicagoist dot com. Thanks! more ›

In news of the bored today, the Chicago Public Library finally updated their website. You know the one that was just white with a little bit of green and just linked to a bunch of PDFs? Now it's all pretty and red and green like, yeah, kind of like a Christmas tree, but the redesign is better organized and most exciting, has an entire section devoted to digital media with ebooks, audio books, and archival photos available. more ›