There’s a new magazine in town, and there’s really only one word to describe it: OY!

Yes, it’s the Jewish Light’s own OY! Magazine, scheduled to appear in our readers’ homes next week.

Why the name change? “We are adding a fourth magazine and so we’ll be going quarterly with our magazine product,” said Publisher/CEO Larry Levin. “Both readers and advertisers have indicated how much they enjoy the magazines as a different kind of venue from our newspapers and website.

“As we make that change, we wanted to give our name and presence some punch and originality. The OY! name captures that we want to focus on something that has a unique scope for the Jewish community.”

Next week’s Unsung Heroes edition of OY!, coinciding with the event of the same name May 24 (see the ad in this week’s issue) will join the Light’s Wedding, Simcha and Guide magazines in rotation throughout the year. But it also allows for some reoccurring content that is common to all the magazines, said Editor Ellen Futterman.

“With a well-branded quarterly magazine like OY!, we can start to introduce features in the magazines throughout the year,” said Futterman. “And so we can have these unique seasonal topics while growing the magazine content to have regular sections.

“We can also give the magazines a consistent and fresh look. We think the Unsung Heroes magazine design is excellent, clean and easy to read.”

The concept for OY! was originated with the Light’s marketing group, which includes such visionary marketing professionals as Light Vice Presidents Diane Gallant and Gary Kodner. The logo for OY! was created by Kodner, a marketing and design professional who has been instrumental in many of the Light’s presentation upgrades.

“Gary is an outstanding marketing and design professional,” said Board President Gianna Jacobson, “and he has a unique way of linking a concept to the underlying content of a publication.

The concept for OY! came out of a series of meetings with both board and staff. “We solicited a variety of people for ideas,” said Levin. “Ultimately we found OY! – the exclamation point turning the word on its head to make it emphatic and surprising – to be playful and fun, and it stood out among the more conservative choices.”

The next OY! magazine will be in late summer and will feature Simcha, the Light’s publication featuring the joyous events in a family’s and community’s life.