WEB DESIGN
LOGOS
Although we left the logo the same this year to keep our branding consistent, I still wanted to alter the logo for special circumstances, like a big package or a new issue. The following have appeared on our website and were the profile picture for our social media accounts at one point.
This is the normal "h" logo that appears
on our website throughout the year.
This is the "h" logo I created for the week we released our election package online. Keeping with the red, white and blue theme that we included in the package, this logo was designed to be fitting for election week.
This is the "h" logo I created for Thanksgiving week because we put together a "Harbinger Family Cookbook."
FEATURED IMAGES
Every story posted to our site has a special featured image that goes along with it to create a visual appeal on our home page and encourage people to click. As an Online Editor, I've pushed the importance of consistency, and we now have a template so the site includes aesthetically-pleasing, uniform images. Click on each of the following to learn what story it corresponded with.
WEBSITE LAYOUT
Since our site had major redesigns in the past few years, we chose to keep a majority of it the same. However, below is a look at the changes I made to a few sections of the site to make it more visually appealing and functional.
MASTHEAD
To improve the original masthead, I made the text larger to fill more space. I moved our logo into "The Harbinger" text, and I altered the font to match the one from this year's print publication so everything is cohesive. We also added our social media icons to the top to share our social media platforms because we've focused more on those this year.
MOBILE SITE
My co-editor and I received consistent complaints that the mobile site was difficult to navigate, and with over 40% of our viewers every week coming from a mobile device, we needed to make some changes. Originally, the category bar would expand over the homepage in black text, so viewers couldn't see what it said. We altered that so when someone clicks the category button it's easier to see. We also added a search bar so people can easily search for what they need to find.
HOME PAGE
Previously, the middle of the homepage had stories from our news, sports and feature sections. But since there were five stories in each column, it was very text heavy. We altered it to three stories so it'd be easier to scroll through, as well as moved the opinion section to replace sports. We felt the sports section fit better by the Scorestream at a different spot on the homepage.
