Embracing Change: A New Look For Podiatry Today

   Over the years, I have been accused of being resistant to change. I am not exactly sure why I have been branded with this label. Granted, the folks at the local Subway start making my sandwich when I walk in the door to grab lunch. Yes, I have gotten the same haircut since college and yes, I have only owned a cell phone for the past year.    Somewhat sensitive to these issues, our Art department started working on column redesigns in the magazine without telling me at first. Knowing how anal-retentive I am about word counts, Vic Geanopulos, our Creative Director, asked our Art Director Heather Long to go ahead and work up some initial redesigns without altering the word count.    When they eventually presented the new design for the “Diabetes Watch” column, which served as the model for the other redesigned columns, Heather and Vic were a bit surprised when I said, “It looks great. Let’s roll with it.”    The truth is, it has been about five and a half years since the relaunch and redesign of Podiatry Today. It was time for a new look and design for the magazine as well as our accompanying Web site, www.podiatrytoday.com.    Over the past couple of years, Heather has provided a fresh look and invigorating design for our feature articles. In last month’s issue, we unveiled her new approach to the regular columns and departments. There are a number of terrific improvements. These improvements are as follows.    • An expanded table of contents. By making the table of contents a page and a half, we can now provide a little more detail about the column content and authors than we did in the past. The newly designed table of contents allows you to scan the articles quickly to find topics that are particularly relevant to you and your practice.    • A terrific reworking of the “News And Trends” section, which enables readers to distinguish the articles from each other more easily.    • Stellar improvements in the design of our regular columns, such as “Diabetes Watch,” “Surgical Pearls” and “Orthotics Q&A.” The redesign gives these columns a cleaner, more modern look while retaining their visual identity.    In addition to the new look for columns and departments, Heather also unveiled new designs in the January issue for our popular “Point-Counterpoint” and continuing education features. Indeed, Heather’s strong design improvements will continue to facilitate Podiatry Today’s reputation as the most widely read magazine in the field.    You may have also noticed some changes to the Podiatry Today Web site in recent months. Accordingly, I wanted to acknowledge the efforts of our information technology team of Jordache Pickel, Tim Shaw, Ed Vander Bush and Fred Klumpp in making the newly designed Web site a reality.    The skinny columns of the past on the Web site have been jettisoned for wider columns, which make the articles easier to read and print out.    To save time, we have also provided a list of common search topics that will hopefully make it easier for Web site visitors to navigate five years worth of archives and back issues.    Paying heed to numerous reader requests over the years, we have also finally added an “author instructions” tag to the left-hand side of the home page. The author instructions page provides detailed word counts, photo formats and other information about submitting articles to Podiatry Today.    We have also maintained our readers’ favorite benefits of the Web site, including easy access to current and archived continuing education activities.    Thank you for your continued loyalty to the magazine. We are confident that you will enjoy the new look and design.