Only two out of the 100 titles in the study were responsive sites: British Vogue (UK) and Quartz (US). A modest 25% were optimized for tablet displays, with the majority defaulting to automatically scaled-down versions of their desktop sites (despite the fact that mobile smart devices like tablets and phones are predicted to outsell desktop computers two-to-one this year). And although many of the titles offered a mobile app version of their site, many of these were a replica of their print publication.
The panelists also admired Vogue’s design clarity, use of web fonts and HTML5, its adaptive design approach and its strong brand personality.
The team at British Vogue attributes their site’s success to a number of factors: making typography and content the top priority throughout the process, questioning norms, finding new and better ways to work together, and frequent testing and iteration.
By adopting a content-first approach and getting rid of the distracting elements many publishing sites still hold on to, they were able to improve the way readers explore content.
Careful consideration of the typography and heaps of experimentation allowed them to establish and convey a strong visual brand identity not just on desktop, but across platforms and viewports.
“Typography and layout are essential to getting a brand’s voice right,” says Kat Windley, the team’s Lead Designer. “And in this case, being able to take full advantage of every screen size and density to ensure things like the images were as big and high-quality as possible and that the typography was rendered with real fonts instead of grainy images was crucial. Key to this was being able to design with web fonts in the browser from the beginning to test combinations and to continually evolve complimenting styles.”
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