JAMAGets a New Look!

Abstract

Welcome to the new JAMA and its first major print redesign in more than 14 years. This redesign is comprehensive and includes all 10 journals that comprise The JAMA Network. The sizeof the journals—theactualdimensionsof thepages—isnow identical, and every article type—including research, opinion, news, humanities, clinical reviews, and letters—has been redesigned. Every typeface, table, graph, and figure has been reviewedand revised.Although the redesignwill bemost evident in print, it will also improve the readability of our content on our digital platforms. The goals of the redesign were tocreatean inviting, visually livelypublicationwithclearnavigation for readersandtoensureharmonyacrossTheJAMANetwork. Much has changed over the past decades in print design, and we have attempted to reinforce the scholarly importance of our research and review sections and to use newer designs to ensure that our Viewpoints, Editorials, and news are more welcoming. The changes are dramatic, and none more so than the cover. The art that has graced the cover for nearly 5 decades hasbeenmoved inside.Wediscussedanddebated this change, queried our readers, and sought advice from the JAMA editorial family. By placing the table of contents on the cover we are responding to a common request: make it easier to find JAMA’s scholarly and stimulating articles. In one spirited exchange with a senior colleague about the cover, he remarked that art is not JAMA, but rather it is the content of JAMA that makes it an important and unique publication. We recognize the important role art has played in the medical humanities and in the history of JAMA, and so it will remain part of our content. All 10 of The JAMA Network journals are now organized in a similar manner. The order of articles, article types, and names of content sections are identical across the network. Readers will find similarly formatted articles regardless of which journal they read. Opinion pieces, including Viewpoints and Editorials, appear at the beginning of each issue. Many of the journals will continue to have invited commentaries about researcharticles. These shorter opinionpieces follow and are linked to the specific article. In JAMA, the news section appears first followed by the opinion section. Research follows, and in all of the journals these articles are now called Original Investigations. The structure of the abstracts has been harmonized across the entire network. Recognizing the importance of abstracts, we dedicate a page to this summary of an article. TheClinical ReviewandEducation section follows,withamixof reviews,quizzes, andother clinically relevant article types. The redesign reflects an enormous effort bymanypeople, but we want to particularly recognize David Harbarger and Britta Hernalsteen at VSA Partners. Although the final decisions are ours, their thoughtfulness and creativity are reflected on every page.We thank them and their design teams and of course the editorial and publishing staff who have worked tirelessly for the past 18months to implement thedesign change. While this redesign is amajormilestone, we are not done yet. We will continue to seek out the best content and to use newprint,web, anddigital developments toenhance thecommunication of our content. Over the past 2 years we have reached out to prospective authors around the world, developednewarticle types, launchedanewplatform, renamed the Archives Journals, introduced an app that allows users access to the entire content of The JAMA Network, and redesigned our entire content. Our vision is simple: to attract outstanding papers, including research, opinion, and reviews; to developnewarticle types that better communicate scientific information in an efficient and scholarly manner; and to use various types of communication—in print, on the web, or on mobile devices—to reachour broad readership and serve their informational needs.