Managing editor for online Meredith Artley used to work at the International Herald Tribune site, in the New York Times system. The new serif typeface — Georgia — will look familiar to web readers from there. We'll see how L.A. readers take to the new look, to the degree that they matter. "Not only did we find that this was a more readable font, but we also felt it connected to our overall brand much better," says the explainer note from Artley and editor Russ Stanton, which discusses a bunch of design changes. So far I like it better. We'll see how it holds up under hard use.

Noted: The skeleton of the page design is basically the same idea as recently rolled out at Sam Zell's Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel and Florida Sun-Sentinel.