WANTED: New Concept for Newspaper Weather

Weather Jockeys

We're a FEARLESS, young weather media company looking to shake things up by taking risks and trying new, innovative approaches to presenting weather in new and innovative ways. We deal with print, web, and broadcast, and have experience in all areas of production. While most of us are professional meteorologists (to quote Bill Murray, "back of man, I'm a scientist!" :-) ), we're focused at our core to serve the best interests of our clients in the long-term.

We've been challenged to change the way that weather looks on the back page of the newspaper. We are looking to create a new, innovative, sexy, hip, cool, attention-grabbing, easy-to-digest view of weather (with a lot of content) that does not have the same tired look and feel of current traditional newspaper weather. The audience will be typical newspaper readers, so the information needs to be graphically appealing and easy-to-understand.

1. Must be a NEW, INNOVATIVE, HIP, COOL design that is EASY TO READ and understand by a casual newspaper reader.
2. Design must fill an 8" wide X 10.5" tall space (newsprint, so can use small fonts on occasion), no margins
3. Must have ALL of the following elements:
a. 5 or 7-day forecast (hi/lo temps, conditions)
b. Map of Minnesota (incl. conditions for 5-10 locations)
c. Map of US (incl. conditions for 5-10 locations)
d. Forecasts for 48 US cities (incl. hi/low temps, conditions) -- graphic or list ok)
e. Forecasts for 20 International cities (incl. hi/low temps, conditions) -- graphic or list ok)
f. Almanac (Temp [hi/lo, norm hi/lo, record hi/lo], Precip [past 24 hrs, mon./norm. mon./yr. to date], Pollen Count [Grass, Trees, Weeds, Mold])
g. Degree Days (Heating/Cooling for Yest./Mon. to Date/Season-Yr. inc. departures)
h. Sun/Moon Rise/Sets and phases (dates)
i. UV Index
j. Air quality
k. National Extremes

Innovative approaches to graphically representing data are encouraged!!

Any other information that may be useful to a newspaper reader is welcome if you can fit it in!

Attached to this challenge are two (very rough) concept samples that failed because they were too "old school" and did not challenge the bounds of what could be done!