The design team that brought you The Valley Beat is back with a new look for the valley’s heritage newspaper.

Associate Editor Nicole Trigg and Graphic Designer Silena Ewen, whose creative collaboration successfully launched the Columbia Valley’s first-ever dedicated events magazine last summer, put their heads together to re-imagine The Valley Echo while taking into account its long and colourful history. The end result is a fascinating mix of new ideas and old favourites, which longterm readers will no doubt recognize.

Building on the success of The Valley Beat, the weekly community calendar is now a full page coined as “The Weekly Beat.” And in staying with the “beat” theme, the old “Street Beat” feature name has been revived and reintroduced to replace “Word on the Street” on page 7. In response to feedback from readers, the well loved “Remember When” section (now found in the second half of the paper) has become more prominent, with eye-catching old fashioned graphics added to enhance its unique historical flavour.

“The mountains on the Remember When page are the same that appear on front covers of The Valley Echo from the ‘50s to the ‘80s, so they have a really long tradition,” said Ms. Ewen.

Readers will also notice a single colour focus on colour pages, which also harkens back to older themes, as do the mountains in the new Valley Echo front page seal, which were also featured prominently on front covers from the late ‘80s and ‘90s. Cleaner lines, a more classic appearance, and a change in font style will make for easier reading while lending more consistency throughout the pages.

“Brain Games” has been given a makeover, as has the “Opinion” page (page 6) and the weekly online poll (page 7). And brand new features have been added including “Valley Snapshot” (page 2) and “Milestones” (page 20).

Readers are encouraged to share their feedback on the new design by emailing production@invermerevalleyecho.com.