ebony gets a new look (again?!)

photo: y. diggs

I mean, I may be one of only a handful of folks who noticed, but Ebony magazine got a new look early last year, when they changed the block red and white logo (that used to hang in the upper left corner of the cover) into a bigger silver lettered (sometimes white, or blue) version that suddenly spanned the width of the magazine. 

The cover text font was changed to a finer, sleeker version and the  photography suddenly seemed crisper and more modern.  Now, I thought I had worked through those changes (Hey, that magazine has been around in my life, all my life, like air, so I'm not pretending this is rational, just saying).  Evidently, I was wrong:

photo: y. diggs

 According to recently hired Editor-In-Chief, Amy DuBois Barnett, herself part of the overhaul at the magazine, “This is a top-to-bottom redesign, not a small one ... This is everything from introducing an evolution of our 65-year-old logo to really taking apart every single page in the magazine and putting it back together with an eye to the brand pillars that we now think best reflect our target demographic.” (Clutch)

I get it:  A 65-year old magazine must do what a 65-year old magazine must do in the face of a giant economic crisis coupled with a mass movement towards digital journalism.  My guess is that Ebony's makeover won't make a bit of difference to those of us who have the magazine coursing through our veins.  But I wonder if it will accomplish its goal of widening the magazine's readership.  What do you think?  Got any Ebony plans?