To our Sunday readers:

One ingredient to the success of a newspaper, or any product, is its look and feel. A good newspaper relies on the effective use of various visual elements — such as type style and size — to ensure that readers profit from the time they spend poring over the pages. Our daily news pages are assembled by editors and designers who work from a predetermined palette of type styles, colors and guiding philosophies, which we generally and collectively refer to as the “design.”

Last Wednesday, we introduced the redesign of the daily Journal, and starting today, we are introducing the new design to the pages of The Providence Sunday Journal.

It was time. Over the years, we had introduced many changes: new sections, new features, and even a new page width. This year has been especially significant as we shifted our local news content to section A, and launched the new projoNation and projoConsumer sections. Meanwhile, we are doing more on our print pages to call attention to our rich offerings on projo.com.

At the beginning of the year, we secured the services of one of the country’s leading news designers: Rob Schneider, presentation director of The Dallas Morning News. He is a highly regarded visual journalist, whose work has received national acclaim. Our redesign initiative began in February, led by Karen Bordeleau, managing editor/administration, and Michael Delaney, managing editor/visuals. They headed up our newsroom design committee, which comprised Kurt Mayer, assistant managing editor; Lisa Newby, picture editor; Linda Cox, copyeditor; and Tony LaRoche, section editor. The project also drew on the talent and attention of Michael Kane, lead application developer.

Months of analysis, debate, review, testing and approvals by Publisher Howard G. Sutton culminated in the work you see here today. One of the most telling aspects of the new design is that we expect the average reader will only have the sense that something is different, and better.

The look and feel of The Providence Sunday Journal, including its unique nameplate, has its roots in our history. One of the guiding principles of the redesign was that it would retain the identity, sense of tradition and elegance of the newspaper. As Schneider likes to say, “The redesign is as significant for what it didn’t change, as it is for what it did change.”

The project also aspired to satisfy other imperatives: sense of energy; emphasis on shorter stories and vital information; ease of readability; better indexes; consistent use of color; and clear story, page and section labels and headlines.

These imperatives served us well over the nine months of the project. Our story typeface is now easier to read, headlines and captions are consistent, and the use of color is standardized. More fact boxes — lists and summaries — will appear with stories. These refinements and others will combine to improve the time that readers spend with our newspapers — daily and Sunday.

Of course, plans are one thing, and action is something else. This redesign will succeed because of the commitment and hard work of the editors and designers who put our newspaper to bed seven nights a week, 365 days a year. You don’t see their names often, but we could never succeed without them. They include:

News: assistant managing editors Jeanne Edwards and Paul Tooher; section editors/designers Babette Augustin and Michael Lennahan; and picture editor Cecilia Prestamo; section editors Peter Donahue, Jan Gregory, Tony Jarzombek, Steve Jusczyk, Kerry Kohring, Bob McNamee and Gary Zebrun; copyeditors Bill Corey, Kathy Garmus, Esther Gross, Bill Hopkins and Dave Husband.

Features: picture editors Gunnar Johnson, Dave Weyermann and Anne Peters; section editors Gail Ciampa, Lynne Chaput, Paula Constantine, Alexis Magner, Doug Riggs, Gene Schumacher and Doug Fellow; copyeditors Robert Cocroft, Bill Oziemblewski, Lars Smith and Rob Young.

Sports: picture editor Ray Capobianco; section editors Mark Castonguay, Larry Houser and Mark Schmiedel; copy editors Greg Fiske, Tom Gardiner and Steve Palazzo; paginators Paul DeSimone and Chris Venditto.

Each day’s Journal reflects the combined efforts of many employees, each of whom contributes something unique to this wondrous endeavor. The names of our reporters and photographers are most visible — for one thing their bylines and credits appear on their work.

Yet, every day, their journalism is supported by skilled and committed people who work at such varied disciplines as advertising, production, circulation and distribution. They work behind the scenes, and they take great pride in helping to get this newspaper to your doorstep, on time, each day.

Thanks to all of them, you have a new and improved Providence Sunday Journal in your hands today. Enjoy.