The start of 2011 came with a new challenge at the Democrat and Chronicle: The complete revamping of the Our Towns zoned sections. The sections, which published weekly and focused on community news, were in need of a serious revamping. The product that launched on March 18, 2011, was just about as different from the old Our Towns as possible. We went from four zones down to two, moved the publication day from Wednesday to Friday, and changed the format from a broadsheet to a tabloid. The new Our Towns had a cleaner design, more color and better navigation.


The old Our Towns sections*
The four old Our Towns zones (Northwest, Southwest, Northeast, Southeast).


The new Our Towns sections
The new Our Towns zones (West, East).

The new Our Towns mainplays
One of the other big changes in this redesign was that we moved the mainplay story into the section to devote the covers to large photos.

*I didn't design pages with asterisks. They're show here for comparison.