HEARST BRANDS
SERVICES
Art Direction
Brand Strategy
Social Media
Illustration
Digital Design
Development of new design systems and visual digital experience for all of Hearst’s UK digital editorial brands, including Cosmopolitan, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, amongst others. The challenge was to translate each of the brands individual print style into digital, and to create new visual guidelines that could work across their editorial content, features, social media and e-commerce sections.
Animations by Issy Muir.
DESCRIPTION
CREATING BRAND STYLES
The first stage was to establish a clear digital style for each of the brands, whilst still keeping their individual tone and personality. The approach was to create a system through collage and illustration that would reinforce each of the brand’s message and digital presence while differentiating them from their competition.
During the second stage, the challenge was to transform already existing print pieces into fully functioning features for the digital space. Working closely with the brand’s editors and Creative Directors, we developed animations and graphics that could adapt better to screens, maintain some of the original images and add a different experience to the reader.
ADAPTING FROM PRINT TO DIGITAL
EXPERIMENTING WITH DIGITAL FIRST STORIES
Once we had a clear, developed digital style we started experimenting with long features that were exclusive to digital, which allowed us to create the visual style from zero and introduce animations and the use of video from the beginning. The result was an improved audience experience, a clear aesthetic for each of the brands and the use of modern techniques that could allow the brands to position themselves as the top digital magazines in the industry.
