Those of you with discerning eyes will notice a few changes to the fall 2003 print version of UTA Magazine.

Actually, it doesn’t take a keen observer to spot the biggest change: The nameplate—the part that says UTA Magazine—now runs horizontally across the top of the cover instead of vertically down the left side. This horizontal orientation creates an uninterrupted design field for compelling cover art and photography. An added bonus is that when displayed on the coffee table with your other favorite magazines, the name is always visible.

For the nameplate itself, we’ve made “UTA” much larger than “Magazine” to emphasize the name of the University. “UTA” remains in a serif font (now Times New Roman instead of Palatino), but we changed “Magazine” to Frutiger, a sans-serif font. The combination of a traditional serif font with a modern sans serif font visually depicts the University’s rich history and its forward-thinking nature.

Also on the cover, a solid bar highlighting three stories now runs across the top. These teasers let you know some of what’s inside without opening to the contents page. Our hope is that at least one will pique your interest and send you thumbing for the corresponding page number.

Open the cover and you’ll see that we’ve devoted the inside front to a full-page campus photograph. This new department, called Lenscape, gives our photographers an opportunity to creatively depict the campus using funky angles, plays on light and lens variations.

On page 1 is a simplified table of contents. The less-is-more layout uses smaller images and places features stories under the heading “In this issue” and departments under “In every issue.” We’ve also moved the masthead information from page 2 to the contents page.

Speaking of the departments, several have new names. Re: Search (formerly Discoveries) continues to focus on faculty research endeavors, The Score (formerly Sports Beat) still covers athletics, and Alum News (formerly Alumni Notebook) remains the place to read about alumni and the Alumni Association.

Campus Buzz retains its name but has several new features. Crash Course highlights an actual course offering and includes a pop quiz on course content. We’ve also added a Q&A with a professor, staff member or student. The stories are generally shorter, allowing us to include more news and information.

All departments have undergone a complete redesign. They now begin with large headings centered at the top of the page. The two-word headings are deliberately treated as one word with a playful use of color. This treatment is also used for columns within each department.

A new grid and use of rule lines provide unlimited design options for varying story length and image size. Separate news items Buzzcuts, Bytesize and Quick Hits are divided by different colors to make reading easier. Alum News features profiles and photos in the center column flanked by class notes, calendars and chapters in the outer columns.

A final change may not be obvious unless you’ve saved some old issues (and we hope you have). If you place an old issue on top of the new issue, you’ll notice that the new one is larger. UTA Magazine is now 9 x 11 instead of 8 3/8 x 10 7/8. At no extra cost, the bigger size provides two benefits: It helps distinguish us from standard-size magazines, and it affords the space necessary to achieve the design changes for this new look.

Please let us know what you think. Send Letters to the Editor to utamagazine@uta.edu.