SFChronicle.com

The San Francisco Chronicle is a 150+ year old brand with six Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence. Despite this, The Chronicle website is clunky and dull due to a general templatized site distributed to many of Hearsts publications nationwide. Sales and Marketing teamed up to conceptualize and pitch a new website. My role as designer was to create a high fidelity responsive redesign of The San Francisco Chronicle website. I collaborated with subscription directors, newsroom editors, and current customers to identify key components. I also led explorative workshops and exercises for research and usability. While the project was eventually put on hold, we were able to research, wireframe, map out user jouney’s and create some high fidelity mockups of the potential website.

Responsive + Mobile First

One of the first issues to tackle was designing SFChronicle.com to be a responsive site. Most of The Chronicle's content was gated, and on mobile, when you logged in, you would experience the same site that you would on desktop. My goal was to simplify the mobile experience, develop a better hierarchy, and create a unique identity for each genre of writing, i.e. US & World, Food & Home, Datebook, etc.

Research & Design

One of The Chronicle's challenges was targeting younger audiences. As with all experiences, I approached the project by researching competitors and other publications that targeted readers between 25 - 55. I also created persona's and collaboratively worked with Sales, Marketing, and the Editor-in-Chief to create a new sitemap.

Article Layout

"John was my mentor and graphic design manager at the San Francisco Chronicle. Working with him was an absolute pleasure. Not only did he teach me hands-on design and human interaction skills, he showed me how important it was to constantly learn and be inspired by those around you. John and I worked closely and he always gave me insightful feedback and critique on my projects, and without hesitation, also asked me for thoughts on his work as well which I truly appreciated. His constant positivity, compassion is inspiring, and his ability to connect on a personal level is astounding. While I was his intern, our collaborative process and teamwork pushed me to further my technique, and showed me that there are no boundaries to creativity."

Jennifer Siu,
Design Lead at Concha Labs

CONTRIBUTION

Senior Visual Designer

DATE

December 2015