On Monday, August 1, 2011, BerkshireDaily introduces a new look, a new brand, and some new features. Mostly, however, the changes are on the surface, and BerkshireDaily remains the same – your free one-stop for the day’s news, features, reviews and information you need, gathered from around the corner and around the globe via the unique curatorial sensibility of editor Seth Rogovoy, and waiting for you in your e-mail inbox by 7 a.m. Monday through Friday.

While the basic format remains the same, BerkshireDaily takes on a new look beginning this week, with a new logo reflecting the e-newsletter’s affiliation with The Rogovoy Report, the online magazine of cultural news and observations by award-winning cultural critic Seth Rogovoy.

New this week is a FEEDBACK feature, allowing readers of BerkshireDaily to sound off on the news of the day and/or on comments they have about BerkshireDaily itself. Simply by replying to the newsletter, readers’ comments on today’s stories can appear the very next day. (These used to be called “Letters to the Editor” back when people wrote letters to editors.)

Also, WeekendPreview, the once-a-week companion e-newsletter to BerkshireDaily that comes out on Wednesday and highlights the editor’s top picks of the upcoming weekend’s cultural scene, has been renamed BerkshireWeekend, to better reflect its content and to sit better alongside BerkshireDaily, and because, frankly, we should have called it that when we first launched it several years ago.

The design of the e-newsletter’s new logo, created by Jen Ødegaard, carries through the subject headers – TOP STORIES, BERKSHIRES, ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT, BUSINESS, WELLNESS, IDEAS, TECHNOLOGY, and FEATURES – and the overall color palette has been changed accordingly to allow text and visuals to be easier on the eyes. Working with Jen Ødegaard, who is based in Ashley Falls, Mass., and whose credits include design, production, and branding work for such local institutions as the Berkshire Visitors Bureau, architect Pamela Sandler, and Germain, was a great pleasure, and the results speak for themselves. We highly recommend her services.

Also new this week are a series of portrait photos of Seth Rogovoy designed and shot by commercial and fine-art photographer Fred Collins, who, as the results of this project clearly demonstrate, is a miracle worker, as well as a helluva nice guy. If you’re going to be shot, you might as well be shot by Fred, who takes no prisoners.

BerkshireDaily, BerkshireWeekend and The Rogovoy Report are advertiser-supported e-newsletters and a website providing free services to subscribers and the local business, civic, and cultural organizations that receive coverage in these online platforms. We are grateful to be able to provide these services as long as they are supported by the community.

Please help insure the continuation of these services by encouraging your friends both in and out of the Berkshires to subscribe to the e-newsletters, by visiting the website regularly, by clicking through to advertisers’ websites, and by advertising your businesses and events on these platforms.

And remember — say you saw it in BerkshireDaily, BerkshireWeekend and on The Rogovoy Report.