After three days, I’ve decided I sorta like the new-look Seattle Times.

The three-deck headlines on most major articles are a convenient and nearly-poetic throwback to the old days of newspapering. The newly consistent headline style on brief stories makes it easy to find what you might want to read. The new text typeface seems larger, without significantly reducing the amount of verbiage per column-inch. Even the photo reproduction seems higher-res.

No major move in a corporate enterprise takes place out of context. There are reasons for revamps such as that of the Times. The paper’s trying to put its joint-operating-agreement “partner,” the Post-Intelligencer, out of business. It wants the local reading public to believe the Times deserves to be Seattle’s only big daily paper.

From the ’50s through the ’70s, the Times was the fat and unsassy voice of the local business establishment, as dull as dishwater and as awkward as a bad karaoke singer. Redesigns in 1980 and 1992, and the JOA’s launch in 1983, put the paper on the road to higher readability. Now, it’s a real newspaper again. (I still don’t want it to become the only paper in town, though.)