WAN-IFRA: What are your main tasks at The Globe and Mail, and what role did you play in the relaunch this past fall?

NORRIS: My day to day tasks are running the whole visual operation: graphics, design, photography and providing presentation advice for our various digital platforms. There are team leaders in each of those areas who assist me.

Equally important is providing the overall visual direction for Canada’s leading media brand based on the priorities of our business set by our owners and the Publisher, Phillip Crawley.

Myself and Assistant Art Director, Devin Slater, were the principal design team. We worked on the Globe’s redesign together, full-time, for a year-and-a-half prior to launch on October 1, 2010. Devin was the creative force and I ran the project.

WAN-IFRA: To undertake such a massive project, where the main print product was redesigned, new print products were launched (also in semi-commercial style taking advantage of the new presses at Transcontinental), website redesigned, big push on mobile and social media, what was the core focus to extend Globe and Mail's brand across such a vast offer?

NORRIS: Time to Lead was a massive cross-departmental undertaking specially created for redesign launch and designed to engage our readers and steer our content. The Globe provided a platform for Canadians to discuss and debate topics they should care about. In fact, it has been so successful it is a concept we are continuing with.

This meant:

• Overall site created to showcase themed content and community rolled out over a week.
• Creation of The Globe Catalyst program – recruited and selected seed groups to inform and influence our coverage and conversation around eight topics Canadians should be talking about.
• Catalysts discussed and influenced articles throughout the eight weeks and were featured in paper, videos and on site as higher-ranked commenters.
• Each week ended with a wrap-up editorial and online video debate.
• We saw a higher quality of comments and calibre of conversation on this focused theme.

Other changes to the site are listed below. And although these were pegged to redesign launch, they were things we wanted to do anyway as part of our ongoing improvements to reader experience. We have since made further improvements to the Life site in terms of content and design.

Overall site

• New navigation to showcase all sections of The Globe And Mail on a top-line navigation.
• New homepage redesign to focus on showcasing the breadth of content from The Globe site, also allows editors to quickly change templates for different breaking news scenarios and large execution ad layouts.
• New article pages – helped to engage a user past just the text read – teasers to mulitmedia graphics, video and photo galleries. Tried to recirculate readers into other sections of the site with a right rail that points to other Globe content.
• One of the main points of the site redesign was also better programming best practices and overall editorial workflow in the CMS system – not something reflected in the design but essential to running a large website.

WAN-IFRA: Print played a predominant role in this strategy which speaks volumes about The Globe and Mail's confidence in its print products. How did the Globe and Mail go about determining what print products to redesign, launch new ones, etc.?

NORRIS: I think the fact that the Globe spent $1.7 billion on a new 18-year contract with print partners Transcontinental who invested in state of the art presses, underscores the Globe’s commitment and value we place in print going forward. In fact the redesign’s project code name was Proudly Print. Here’s our project mandate:

Redesign 2010 is a bold bet on our future and a celebration of our past.

• The Future: Our new, state-of-the-art German presses provide us with full colour on every page, the selective use of high-white, heat set stock, and higher-quality, magazine-like reproduction. The Globe and Mail can now attract new advertisers on a daily basis. We aim to increase our appeal to two sought-after demographic groups: Mid-career, 35+ professional women and, mainly through content selection, second generation New Canadians. We have designed the newspaper for the digitally engaged, people who are time pressed during the week and have more time to spend with us over the weekend. We will achieve this through the use of outstanding visuals, signature design and typography. The Globe believes in the future of newspapers.

• The Past: The Globe and Mail is older than Canada itself. As we researched trends in the past and present, we found a current cultural resurgence in the return to craft. We have designed a newspaper that echoes the feelings of tradition, elegance and history, while mixing in the cool and contemporary. Our newspaper is a smaller format: 11-inches wide by 21-inches deep; and we have introduced new ways of storytelling. Yet by signaling our rich past, we are projecting a timeless and classical beauty in a flat screen, information-on-demand world."

Our design offers familiarity, reassurance and elegance. We are Proudly Print.

In terms of new products, we were led in part by our new printing technology, especially the high white, heatset, semi-gloss paper. Our advertising department soon saw it’s potential to drive new revenue opportunities, also having a clear understanding of our demographic and who we wanted to attract in the future. This combination led to the creation of the hybrid newspaper / magazine-like Style section. Product development choices were driven by: print technology, understanding old and new readers habits, advertising opportunities and creative new content choices.

WAN-IFRA: How big of a role did marketing and promotion play in the launch, and what were some of the key things The Globe and Mail did to ensure exposure to its audience?

NORRIS: The marketing campaign around redesign was the biggest the Globe had ever undertaken and was the reinvention of a brand and the way it relates to its readers. It was a fully integrated campaign with; editorial, circulation, digital, ad sales and marketing, to promote Time to Lead which has since won several awards.

Marketing research guided the issues we wanted the catalyst group to explore and consisted of 1000 advisory readers. Together they shaped the discussions and as reward had a sneak peak of the redesign before launch.

Time to Lead consisted of a multimedia campaign, road show events, cinema and billboard ads to name a few. But the biggest influence came from our readers in the catalyst group.