Editorial Featured Image Strategy
Role: Art Director, Designer
Visual Designers: Kelly Rice, Vlad Gorshkov, Sam Elbouez
When I first became involved in our Content division, our editorial featured images were all custom-made. A reporter would submit a creative request for an image and the designer would develop an image in a completely new, unique style. While this presented a great opportunity for creative freedom, the amount of time that went into producing each image was creating a severe drain on our resources. Along with my designer Kelly Rice, I developed a new templated process that improved our efficiency and speed, while still maintaining creative opportunities for high-profile stories that warranted extra bandwidth.
Analyst Featured Image Style and Process
Role: Art Director, Designer
Visual Designers: Kelly Rice, Ashley Berry, Chloe Phan, Anna Davis
In 2021 our content division launched a new Analyst team that included economists, market researchers, and geopolitical analysts. Our editorial and analyst content needed to be visually distinct, so we developed a unique style that included a color-coded approach to distinguish each topic of analysis. In 2022, following our rebrand, we determined that this color-coded approach was no longer serving us well. It was creating a monotonous look on our website and didn’t adapt well to cross-vertical collaboration. To improve this system we developed a new style influenced by our recent rebrand that allowed for plenty of variety and flexibility.
2023 Featured Image Update
Role: Art Director, Designer
Visual Designers: Kelly Rice, Ashley Berry
Following the 2023 restructuring of the content division and the elimination of the Editorial team, we found ourselves facing a new problem. Without the balance of editorial featured images on the website, our analyst style was again beginning to feel monotonous. To solve this challenge, we developed a new tiered approach that used a number of different styles to not only provide variety, but also to establish helpful hierarchy and let our high-profile stories stand out among the others.
U.S. Politics Featured Images
Role: Art Director, Designer
Visual Designers: Kelly Rice, Natalie White, Ashley Berry
The U.S. Politics analyst vertical presented it’s own unique case of needing to rely on the colors red and blue to often indicate a political affiliation. To support this need, we developed a unique gradient for U.S. Politics and expanded the analyst featured image style to suit their specific needs.
Report and Tracker Thumbnail Images
Role: Art Director, Designer
Visual Designers: Kelly Rice, Ashley Berry, Natalie White
There were two other types of images that were mixed in amongst our featured images, thumbnails for our trackers and report landing pages. We developed additional styles for these images to help them stand apart from the articles on the website. For the reports in particular, we developed a “mockup” approach to communicate to the audience that they would be led to a downloadable resource. I took on a design role to develop the tracker style, while Ashley Berry and Natalie White followed my art direction to develop the report style.
