No, you haven’t picked up the wrong newspaper. OK, maybe you did, that is if the Oregon Daily Emerald wasn’t your true choice for reading pleasure during bites of that tasty lunch, while enduring slow spots of your interminable staff meeting or as you, um, let’s just say, take a potty break.
If we were your preference to pass the time, the Emerald has undergone a change in its look, in case you didn’t notice.
Katie Miller, the ODE’s graphic design editor for the 2000-01, first suggested a re-design for the newspaper in May. Her objectives were to “better reflect the readership of the Emerald” and to “better reflect a concrete personality of the paper.”
In true Katie form, she was also blunt about the paper’s readership. “Why do people really read the Emerald?” she asked, the question typed out on an 11×17 sheet of paper. “Because they’re bored,” “For the classifieds/horoscope/crossword” and “To scrutinize our every mistake and inaccuracy and therefore give people something to complain about and debate in class.”

Maybe that last point makes us sound more important than we actually are — certainly students have more meaningful tasks to carry out in class, such as furiously doodle while pretending to take notes. But, Katie’s thoughts are funny, if not 100 percent accurate.
Back to the re-design then. The Emerald has seen a few changes, even in the past 10 years, as you can see by the reproductions placed on this page.
The decision to change your look doesn’t come easy to newspapers, however. Did you know that the bigwigs at The New York Times discussed the pros and cons of using color photographs for almost four years before finally deciding “yes” several years back?
I’m in no way, shape or form comparing the ODE to the NYT, but all publications take changes under serious consideration. We at the Emerald took a fair amount of time and engaged in several discussions before deciding to take our plunge.
So, what’s different?
The front page obviously. No more “Flash,” that left-hand strip of news or blurbs referring readers to inside stories. More type and art just below “Oregon Daily Emerald.”
On section fronts, the type style for the section names has changed, in addition to a few other minor tweaks.
Other than those few things, not much has changed. We’re still the newspaper to read when you’re bored in class. We’re still the newspaper to pick up to read what your horoscope wants you to do on that particular day.
And yes, we’re still the newspaper that will make mistakes and inaccuracies for you to scrutinize and complain about. We would never claim to be perfect, nor would any other newspaper or publication, for that matter. It’s why we all have a correction policy.
Take our re-design for what it is, however, an attempt to mildly shake up our operations.
While we won’t reach perfection, we want to limit our screw-ups to ones that barely cause a blip on your reading radar. We want to start fresh this fall term in the year of 2000, which some people say is the true end of the millennium.

We also want to work out the kinks now, see what does and doesn’t look good in print before we begin Monday through Friday publication on Sept. 25.
Which brings me to the final point of this piece. Today’s issue is the final one for the summer term. We print our special Law School Edition on Aug. 23 and then won’t be on the stands again until our Back to the Books behemoth on Sept. 18.
We hope you enjoy the Emerald’s new look. If not, we hope you still read us to call us every time we make a misteak.