Windy City Times Celebrates Birthday with New Design

Chicago – Windy City Times, Chicago's most award-winning gay and lesbian newspaper, is celebrating the start of its 23rd year in style: a new style.

"This is the first major re-design of Windy City Times since it was made over in 2001," said Publisher and co-founder Tracy Baim. "We are excited about the new format, and its ability to work well with our online content. There will be a fresh new look, lots of color, and higher quality design." The Wednesday, Sept. 5 edition will feature the new design.

New features in Windy City Times will include a new front page layout with one focused larger image, a defined inner front page which will be the start of the entertainment section, more photos imbedded within the text of a story, and a resizing that will be 10 inches wide x 14 inches tall.

Windy City Media Group, the umbrella company Windy City Times falls beneath, also just launched an updated Web site which not only features 90% of the paper's context online but also has a community reference guide for GLBT organizations, bars and services. With the new design of the paper also comes an 'online-only content' feature that will tease print readers about an article or news item they can only find on the WindyCityMediaGroup.com Web site.

'We are also going to have the entire editions of Windy City Times and Nightspots online and downloadable as PDFs each week,' said Baim.

Art Director Kirk Williamson, who is also managing editor of Nightspots, a weekly club and entertainment guide published by Windy City Media Group, is spearheading the new design of Windy City Times.

What also makes Windy City Media Group unique among many of the nation's GLBT papers is all that they provide via media to their advertisers as well as their community readership.

'Our company offers the unique opportunity for advertisers to create a cohesive package that not only contains a print ad targeting the GLBT community, but to also have the opportunity to sponsor a large event centered on their product, put themselves in the e-mail boxes of our readers via our weekly eblast, or even get their name heard on our bi-weekly Queercast,' said marketing director Kathleen Ulm.

In the age of new media, Windy City Media Group has lead the way in producing a solid package for readers and marketers. Most notably they produce one of Chicago's largest community bar events during the year, Windy City Gay Idol, which involves over a dozen local bars and clubs and hundreds of participants and fans during a multiple-month promotional run. The event is produced by Windy City Media Group and sponsored for over five years by Bud Light and American Airlines, along with a variety of other supporting sponsors. Windy City Media Group is the producer of Windy City Times, Nightspots, WindyCityQueercast, and Identity. Also see: www.windycitymediagroup.com . 773-871-7610. Editor@WindyCityMediaGroup.com

www.WindyCityMediaGroup.com

Windy City Times

Nightspots

Identity

OUT! Guide

WindyCityQueercast.com

773-871-7610

www.WindyCityMediaGroup.com

Windy City Media Group

5443 N. Broadway

Chicago, Illinois 60640