More Pleas

You guys have joined the artsy-fartsy new generation of design, just like Time magazine, which I just cancelled.

I am not feeble and get good vision checkups, but simply cannot read the small, thin letter face you use in your event listings. The change in type size and the intensity of the graphics makes reading very difficult, as well.

This is besides the lack of listings, period. Do you guys actually hate the community you work in? Even before this, you would leave out the time and place of events, or make other mistakes, or leave out events completely. Your staff once made the disingenuous statement that people in various organizations, such as the Sierra Club, know about their activities which were mostly for members, and not the public.

The proof of your blunder is in the Independents left on the rack around town. Usually they are gone by Saturday, but not any more. –Merle Betz, Santa Barbara

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I have to really be upset to write a letter to the editor. In this case, I agree with all the other letters to the editor regarding the Calendar section. I spend way too much time on my computer already and won’t even look to see what’s going on in Santa Barbara if it’s not in your paper. In these times, being “in print” makes you special! The Santa Barbara Independent is my first-choice read and I refer to it all week.

I also agree with your readers who said the new fonts and set-up make what you call “the Week” very difficult to follow. This terrible design makes me flip through the whole section so I don’t have to look at it. One reader’s letter called it “graphics overload” and I totally agree. It does suck.

PS If you cancel Angry Poodle, I’m done with you. –Joanna Morgan, Santa Barbara

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Please, please, please, bring back The Week in the old format! The new format might fulfill a graphic editor’s desire for cool but it provides very little information on the many events happening in SB. The main purpose of a paper is to provide information within its pages, not to send its readers online. Is the ultimate goal of the Independent to stop publishing a paper edition?

You had a fine format for events listings. Every organization received equal exposure and readers had a chance to discover concerts or lectures they would not have readily considered. Instead, events are “selected” for your readership according to undisclosed criteria (paid advertising?). Sending the reader online is not a palliative. Many people won’t make the extra step to go online and check listings. There also still are people in our community who do not own a computer or are not comfortable using one. You have eliminated for this segment of your readers the pleasure of going through the weekly calendar and selecting events they would like to attend. The net result of your format change is an impoverishment of the cultural life of our community. –Connie Horowitz