It promises to bring a whole new dimension to the print edition, and offers a window on life in the County to those who might wish to visit.

Alongside the redesign of the print edition, the Gazette hired Patrick Pittman and Chris Lange of No Media to reimagine the website. Work has been underway for months.

The new site respects the reader, first and foremost. There are no popups, and no demands to subscribe, to enter your email address, or to add your phone number to receive text notifications. Advertising will not flash at you from the margins, and Google Ads will not follow you around with pictures from your last shopping trip.

No Media worked hard to make the reading experience friendly and engaging, while still leaving room on the site for advertisements from local businesses, which add life and vibrancy and give a sense of the larger community.

Working with Art Director Jed Tallo’s new templates for the print edition, No Media created a coordinated new look for the digital edition, while improving the site’s speed and accessibility and expanding its features.

The high-performance site is also made for life in the County. It will work across all devices, including laptops, ipads, and phones.

“Jed’s brand was such a great toolkit for us to build something beautiful, as was the energy and care of the entire team,” said Mr. Pittman. “I honestly think their writing and reporting is as good as that of any news outlet in the country.”

“I look forward to the attention the Gazette’s new energy will receive both locally and beyond. This has been a joy to build, and will continue to be a joy to bring into the world.”

As always, breaking news will appear on the website, while each week’s print features, reviews, editorials and letters will be organized and, crucially, searchable. Special collections gather together ongoing stories under headings such as Tourism, the Environment, Development, or Base31. There is an archives section continuous with the Living History column in the print edition.

There’s also room for input. On the Events page, individual residents, recreation committees, and businesses are encouraged to submit event listings. The Gazette wants a centrally located Events page for everyone in the County, also accessible to anyone planning to visit.

Similarly the Classifieds and Social pages in the Around the Island section now allow people to enter their own notices, be they anniversaries, obituaries, or lawn sales, and to pay for them there. All such notices will now appear both online and in print.

A “press reader” offers each print edition page by page.

Publisher Karen Valihora is grateful for a website that is in its design elements connected to the print edition. “Not only can we maintain a digital edition that makes the Gazette truly the County’s Newspaper of Record, but the graphic design incorporates materials from the print edition and its extensive archive. It showcases and preserves the history of Canada’s oldest weekly newspaper.”

“I cannot thank all of our designers enough, Chris Lange, Patrick Pittman, and Jed Tallo, who worked together so carefully and for so long to create what I think will be an award-winning website, unique in the current news landscape for its readability, its discrete functionality, and, really, just its beauty. Its gorgeous.”

“It’s a place I hope readers will want to go to, for a very long time, and it allows us to maintain a public record of our coverage. It’s also a way to invite in would-be visitors, and brand new residents, something I find really exciting.”

Mr. Pittman remarked, “What I like best about this website is that it exists, and it is beautiful and bold and full of energy. But also in a time where local news in Canada is disappearing, and what remains is being consolidated into a sea of mediocrity, it’s an amazing privilege to be able to prove that you can go in the opposite direction.”