If you had been putting out for nearly 100 years, you would be ready for a facelift, too.

We realized last semester the overall image of our organization needed a makeover. The Appalachian is an old publication that was in need of a modern restyling.

We needed to begin the process of change to rise up to the high standards to which we know our valued readers hold us.

This process began by redesigning the print product. After countless sketches we finally settled on the design you currently see on the racks. This design is more professional and modern, the image we would like to portray as we mature as an organization.

But after seeing how well change was received, we couldn’t stop there.

The first step to change is admitting your shortcomings, and it’s obvious to anyone with a web browser that our website was, to put it politely, terrible.

When I took on the task of redesigning our website I had a few goals in mind: improving navigation, increasing visuals and, at all costs, making sure it loads.

I’m glad to say that I think we’ve accomplished those goals and we are all ecstatic about the positive feedback from you all.  The site now features our main stories front and center, photo galleries are slowly being fixed and the design should change based on the size of your screen.

It is in no way finished, but I’m excited to see where these changes will take us.

Many readers have reported a few issues and we’re trying to fix them as quickly as possible.  Please be patient as we make the transition and please let us know any problems you have by contacting us on our Facebook or Twitter pages. We want to make accessing our content the best experience possible and all of your feedback is greatly appreciated.

As I said, this is only the beginning of the changes that we’ll be making. We recently brought back the social media manager position and hope to engage more with our readers online. I hope that having this dedicated web team will make The Appalachian more engaged with our community and school.

I would like to thank you all on behalf of myself, our head of production and design Malik Rahili and The Appalachian for the support and feedback you’ve given as we make transitions to our entire publication.

Opinion: Justin Perry, Web Manager