Even in the best of circumstances, getting out a public affairs magazine can involve enough behind-the-scenes drama to keep an editor's heart ticking double-time.

When one Illinois congressman unexpectedly lost re-election last fall, we reworked our cover story at what seemed like the last possible second. When another congressman managed to get himself convicted, we raced across town to the printer's shop just so we could squeeze that item onto ready-to-go pages.

In fact, we regularly rearrange our story line-up in an effort to keep you posted on breaking political news and informed about developing policy issues, whether they involve new regulations for the state's horseracing industry or an overhaul of national farm policy.

That can sometimes be nerve-wracking on a magazine's extended production schedule, requiring a nail-biting gap between deadline and delivery. We publish a monthly that aims to be current while offering a broader perspective, so we should be used to prepublication jitters.

Still, this month's deadline feels something like opening night as we unveil our new look. Even though the "redesign" has been in the works for a year, there was a bit of backstage scrambling to get this January issue to you. We adjusted word counts, nailed down the color scheme and cajoled columnists into stopping by to give us several samples of their signatures.

Why have we gone to such lengths to give ourselves a new "look"? For the same reason we'll go another mile to get the latest information into each issue.

We believe the old design was dated. That's why we modernized our Illinois Issues cover logo and changed the type and the layout on the inside pages.

And we think our columnists from three regions of the state now represent more diverse perspectives and bring more individual voices to the magazine. That's why we took new photos. And got those signatures. We think it's more personal that way, and helps you to "meet" the people behind the opinions.

But the main reason for the new design is that it lets us improve the magazine's content. We'll be able to respond better to changing events.

We'll have more flexibility on story choice and on story length. With the old design, if a short item wasn't about the state Supreme Court, wasn't a report by an agency, wasn't an announcement about a person, wasn't a bit of statistical data or wasn't an "innovation," we had no place to put it.

There was a "department" for some items, but no place for anything else.

During the past year, we experimented with article lengths and stretched the parameters of the departments, but the new design will give us more options.

We created an all-purpose upfront section we're calling Briefly, so that we can bring you breaking stories, updates on issues we've already covered and items that are just plain interesting. The new section, which will run two to eight pages, will be edited by Donald Sevener.

At the same time, we want to assume fans of the old departments — Court Briefs, State Stix, State Reports and Innovations — that they'll continue see those items in the new section.

We're keeping People, edited by Beverley Scobell, Your Turn and, of, course, the letters to the editor.

And I'll be writing this column each month to give you a peek behind the curtain. I'll fill you in on how we choose our stories and who helps us write and illustrate them. •

4 * January 1996 Illinois Issues