This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, Feb. 5

In my Thursday blog, I discussed the news that The Virginian-Pilot, one of the best designed newspapers in the US, will outsource its design to a Canadian firm.

Then I went into a discussion of design hubs, and how the work tends to be more template-driven than art directed.

As a result of the blog, I have been asked by Columbia Journalism Review to write a more extensive piece on the subject (to be published sometime today Friday), but, in the process, I have received sample pages designed in design centers/hubs that truly look good, proving the point that you can “art direct” pages in the environment of a design hub.

Here are some of those examples.

Stay tuned for link to my CJR story later in the day today.