Wall Street Journal to unveil new look, adding new section, more color pages

Thursday, December 6th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) _ The Wall Street Journal will have a new look next spring, adding color to its front page and offering a new section. It's the first redesign for Page One in half a century.

The new look would make its debut April 9, Dow Jones & Co. Chairman Peter Kann said Thursday at an investors' conference sponsored by Credit Suisse First Boston.

A section called ``Personal Journal'' will appear Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and will carry articles on personal investing, travel, health and family.

Dow Jones did not release a sample of the new design, but said it would be ``cleaner and clearer'' and would include more aids to navigating the paper and fewer typefaces.

Also, the front page would have a new design for the first time since World War II and would include color. Currently the Journal uses some color graphics and photos inside the paper, but Dow Jones declined to specify how color would be used in the new front page design.

The changes are the result of four years of planning and more than $225 million in investments to increase the page and color-printing capacity.

Beginning Jan. 2, Kann said, the Journal's page capacity would increase to 96 from 80. Twenty-four pages will be able to be printed in color, up from the current eight.

The Journal's Web site, wsj.com, also will unveil a new design on Jan. 28, Kann said.

He also said Dow Jones would make some purchases, sales or swaps to adjust its portfolio of community newspapers, the Ottaway group.