Dummy of the new-look FT Weekend
New year, new look for the Financial Times as the paper launches City columns, revamps the front page of its Companies and Markets section and this Saturday gives its Weekend FT a sophisticated facelift.
FT contributor John Plender is now writing a new City column on Mondays, while for the rest of the week City editor Martin Dickson writes the Lombard comment piece.
Companies and Markets has a new brighter look, giving it "much more impact", said managing editor John Ridding. "The changes are part of a rolling programme of enhancement under [editor] Andrew Gowers. We are looking at how we can bring more visual impact and improved layout and clarity to the paper."
Weekend FT editor Julia Cuthbertson said: "We’ve had this design for about two years and I thought it was about time to bring refreshment and refinement to the Weekend FT.
"It’s not a radical redesign – more a sophisticated and elegant one with more visual appeal."
For the first time the FT will have a sports columnist, Simon Cooper, who previously wrote on currency for the paper. One of the section’s star writers, Holly Finn, is to get her own column on the How to Spend It pages.
Pages two and three are to be called Frontline and will have new elements, such as The Experts’ Expert and Numbers Talk – "snippety items which look at what other people are doing". Weekend FT will keep its Lunch with the FT feature.
The front page will have more flexibility, style and shape and there will be a new Personal Space section, weaving together property, interiors and gardening. Cuthbertson said Weekend FT would "always have a fashion page".
Facts and figures will be displayed more accessibly in art director Andy Chappin’s redesign, which has taken about six weeks to complete.
By Jean Morgan
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