Months ago, when Georgia Straight art director Matt McLeod began working on a redesign of the paper, he sought a sleeker, cleaner look. He wanted bolder headlines. He felt there needed to be more white space around the lead pages of major articles. And he was dedicated to enhancing readability without tampering with the articles.

This week's redesigned Georgia Straight features the results of that effort. "It's what I believe a modern newspaper should look like while still keeping to its roots," McLeod said. "We've already got a great product."

McLeod, 24, chose Vancouver photographer Alex Waterhouse-Hayward to take the cover shot of Holy Body Tattoo for this issue. Waterhouse-Hayward's dramatic style was a perfect fit, McLeod said, for what he was trying to achieve with the redesign.

"I knew he would come through for me on an issue like this," McLeod said. "I wanted something very clean and very strong."

McLeod, who graduated with a 4.0 grade-point average from the International Academy of Design and Technology in Toronto, used a Vectora font on the cover and for headlines in this issue. He switched to a Minion font for the copy within articles, once again to achieve a sleeker presentation. "Font selection is key," he said.

He credited a former art director, Annette Waurick, for her preliminary work on the redesign of the Straight.

Regular readers will notice that the letters section has more prominence. McLeod said he feels that readers' feedback is a very important component of the paper, whereas there isn't nearly as much interest in the masthead, which has been moved to the bottom of the page.

Another popular section, Time Out, has a cleaner look thanks to the use of new fonts. The horoscopes even got a brush-up with new icons for each astrological sign. "The contents haven't changed much," McLeod said. "It's just an update to the look."

McLeod has already demonstrated a knack for adding a comedic visual element to attract reader interest in more serious stories. Last August, for a cover story on postsecondary-tuition increases, he asked an illustrator to portray Premier Gordon Campbell as a muscular doorman named "Gordo" standing outside a nightclub. For another story, McLeod featured an illustration of President George Bush inviting Prime Minister Paul Martin to join him for a video game called "missile defence". McLeod suggested that readers can expect more of this in the future, along with other surprises.

"I'm a firm believer that people get sick of the same style if you're using it too much," he said. "Consistency is key, but you also need to keep some variety in it."

McLeod noted that in-house designer Mark "Atomos" Pilon created new column slugs. McLeod also praised assistant art director Janet McDonald and layout designer Annette Spreeuw for the look of the paper on a weekly basis. He added that the redesign of the Georgia Straight coincided with the introduction of a new design program.