Last week, while hanging from the top branches of one of our apple trees, I commented to my wife on how much work it takes to maintain and keep our Murrayville yard tidy.
In just the past three weeks, we have trimmed a dozen or more cedar trees, pruned three apple trees, worked feverishly on trying to bring back our dried-out lawn to respectability and deposited over 50 yard bags on the front curb.
While taking a well-deserved break, my wife and I pondered over replacing our 20-year-old roof, windows, and strategized over paint colour combinations for the inside and outside of our home. There is no doubt owning a home takes a lot of work, and components of homes often get tired and need to be fixed, cleaned up, and redesigned.
Just like maintaining a home and cleaning up a yard, a community newspaper also undergoes similar transformations.
Three years ago, we at The Langley Times went through the arduous process of tackling a redesign of our community newspaper. After winning first place in 2010 in the general excellence category at the British Columbia and Yukon Newspaper Awards, the team thought it was time to clean up our house and tackle a well-needed redesign.
Our objective and strength as a community newspaper is to bring compelling and unique Langley content to readers’ doorsteps twice a week. The goal for our redesign was very simple: to create a community newspaper that has a clean layout and is uniquely different from any other community newspaper in Canada.
Many hours were spent on designing our new logo, experimenting with new fonts and colours, cleaning up pages with a modern look and ultimately putting the entire package together in what we now call “The New and Improved Langley Times.”
I believe our team has gone above and beyond the call of duty and exceeded our redesign strategy.
Special thanks goes to creative designer Brittany Best for being the quarterback on this important project, and putting those special touches only an exceptional artist could accomplish. Thanks to project leaders Brenda Anderson, Kelly Myers and Millie McKinnon for guiding us along the way and providing leadership.
While thumbing through my pocket to find a coin to purchase air for my front flat tire, I pondered and thought to myself that there are not many free things left in our society today. Community newspapers are that rare breed in our frontier that are still free to the public and bring tremendous community value to our readers. The Langley Times is your hometown community newspaper and we look forward to hearing from you on our new look and feel. Forward your comments to publisher@langleytimes.com or call me directly at 604-514-6750.
I would like to dedicate this redesign to our amazing staff, dedicated carriers, loyal readers and advertisers who continually support The Langley Times issue after issue.
I guess updating the publisher picture every eight years is not a bad thing after all. At least that’s what I think McGregor would say…