Creative Loafing Charlotte, which has served as the premier voice on arts and entertainment in Charlotte for 27 years, unveiled a redesign of its print edition today.

By streamlining and modernizing the design, the cleaner look engages the reader from the cover to the last page. Bolder fonts, more white space and larger art all contribute to the publication’s new look.

The new logo was crafted by Social Design House’s Tamara LaValla. “CL remains one of my favorite arts and entertainment sources to this day,” said the illustrator/designer. “I jumped at the chance to be a part of the redesign. I’m proud to say that the new logo brings a bit of refinement and whimsy to the already edgy publication.”

The logo returns to dominating the cover, said editor Kimberly Lawson, because “we wanted to celebrate our unique name.”

“We are all very excited and proud of our new look,” publisher Chris Sexson said. “Our design team had a clear direction that we wanted to go in. Our friends at Social Design House have really captured our ideas and gave us the exact look and feel we were going for.”

The newspaper also announced a new partnership with Laudd, a cloud-based content monetization service startup founded by successful serial entrepreneur Atul Tulshibagwale, and backed by reputed news industry and tech professionals such as John Temple, a former managing editor of the Washington Post, and Justin Ferrell, a director at the Stanford Design School.

Laudd is a new way for readers to voluntarily pay for content they like. It’s convenient because most often, one click is all it takes to donate; low-pressure because readers can donate any amount they wish; and easy because it doesn’t delay or prevent them from accessing the stories they want to read.

“We’re delighted to bring our first content payment service to market with the trendy, cool and tech-savvy Creative Loafing Charlotte website,” said Tulshibagwale. “We’re excited and honored to be able to power their revenue growth through easy, in-page micro-donations. The CLCLT audience, with its high number of young, college-educated visitors, is uniquely qualified to make micro-payments using Laudd a success for CLCLT.”

“The media landscape has surely changed in our first 27 years,” said Sexson. “It will surely change some more. We are the evolution of newsprint and on the forefront of the digital landscape delivering free truth to power journalism. We’re ready for the next 27 years.”