On April 9, 2002, readers of the print editions of the U.S. Wall Street Journal were treated to a new look for the first time since 1942.

The newspaper's new features include:

• A jazzed-up front page with color, three-column headlines on the right side of the page, and subtle shading of columns that highlight 'What's News.'
• More white space and breathing room around the columns for better readability.
• A colorful new 'Inside Today's Journal' contents box and 'Online Today' guide to the online journal.
• A daily 'Market Forecast' column that highlights events expected to move the markets each day, along with a new 'Markets Lineup' statistical package, enhanced charts and stock pages.
• Separate sections called "Personal Journal" (published Tuesday through Thursday) and "Weekend Journal." These sections feature articles about personal finance, health, leisure, travel, books, art, sports and consumer technology.

Many loyal readers loved the paper the way it was, and the Journal was careful to keep its trademark portraits (line drawings in lieu of photographs) in their traditional black and white. Through an advertising campaign featuring rejected redesigns, the Journal emphasized its conservatism and its deliberate attempt to avoid making changes that would be perceived as too radical.

The features selected for incorporation into the Journal’s new look represent a carefully-researched gamble. The decisions were the result of a four-year $232 million project designed to increase page capacity, overcome an advertising slump and attract a new kind of reader.

Journal Vice President and General Manager Dan Austin explained the redesign is "aimed both at the readers we have, and those we should have: young men and women in business and the professions who can benefit from our content but who, until April 9, might have found the Journal we all know and love a bit unapproachable."

Take an online tour of the new features.

-Rosemary Schlank