Journal Media Group

Category

Web Design & Development

Client

Journal Media Group

Goal

Design a new online look for major-market-newspapers

Background

Post E.W. Scripps merger with Milwaukee Journal Inc., the newly formed Journal Media Group ran and maintained 15 newspapers across the United States. Each paper is a major news media organization in their area. With differing site designs and platforms being used, a new design was needed which was both harmonious across the organization and was also sensitive to the branding needs of each. Coming from differing platforms the new sites also needed to run on a single CMS system

Solution

My role was to provide the entire sites designs, scalable html/css across differing devices and coordinate closely with the corporate developers. Secondary was to provide any graphics needs in the form of logo's or site widgets

The ealier site designs were based on a broadcast news template which didn't speak well to a newspaper indusrty. A three-column design was used which picked up the paper feel, and also emphasized easier user page scanning with an open feel and white space between elements. Categories were seperated with color and a bold font, using a single main category image as the anchor. A Serif font was chosen for the body copy for readability and as a tie in to the print side.

Flexibility for differing ad sizes was achieved by using the left column and top and bottom panels, with an expandable ad space in the navigation panel