Emerge Web Mag -Website Design

responsive web magazine visuals

EmergeTO is a large, innovative cross-collaboration media project that is led by fourth-year media studies students of all disciplines. Emerge Magazine and the Emerge Web Magazine’s focus in 2018 was on the success of individuals in music, sports, and fashion in the Greater Toronto Area.

Accessibility button opened
Screens from our web magazine site

I was the Emerge Web Magazine web design team lead.

My team consisted of six web designers in total. This does not include the countless other graphic designers, photographers, videographers, journalism writers, sponsored/branded content writers, and editors that made Emerge Web Magazine 2018 so successful. I was also the liaison for the web magazine journalism team.

chart for workback schedule
I was the liaison between the journalism team and the web design team. This was part of our “workback” plan.

The Web Design Team’s Tasks

In Our Scope

Mobile View

• Designing the website’s layouts, integrating accessibility and responsiveness
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO), tracking analytics, and maintaining the website by troubleshooting issues and fixing bugs
• Creating an outlet for Journalism students to post, edit, and publish articles, and giving technical support where possible
• Managing WordPress, installing/updating plug-ins. Creating pages and space for media content
• Providing photo and graphic size dimensions and requirements to photographers

Out Of Our Scope

Desktop View

• Producing written content and articles
• Social media and advertising content
• Producing photographs, graphics, and video
• Editing photographs, graphics, and video
• Creating and maintaining the Emerge Awards and Emerge Conference websites

Homepage Wireframe

wireframe for emerge magazine 201

Goals Met in This Project

Button added to web magazine for more accessibility options.
  • Website Accessibility. We added accessible buttons to alter the webpage visuals for those who are visual impaired or need a dark mode
  • Brand Awareness. Opened and expanded our audience more to other institutions. Improved SEO by adding alt tags, creating better layouts, etc.
  • Better UX. As a team we did more research on user experience. Having an easy to follow magazine theme with basic menu tabs. Improved our information architecture by creating magazine sections on the homepage. Easy to navigate, share and comment on the article pages.
  • Clear Project Plan. Being organized and setting expectations at the beginning. Delegating tasks to the graphic designers helped take the load off of the web team. Creating instructional guides for content writers, posting schedules and contact lists which added clearer communication.
  • Regular Feedback. Meeting with our faculty advisor regularly to get feedback. We also did a site launch feedback survey and sent it out to all of the Media Studies students. Surveys were available online and on paper.

Awards

First Place – 2019 EMA Award for best University web magazine or news site

Finalist – The Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) Pacemaker Award for online broadcast, news and magazine site