The Architect’s Newspaper is an architecture trade publication. Their website, archpaper.com, comprises over 16 years of content, including over 14,000 posts and over 20,000 images, scattered across a handfull of content management systems and formats.

archpaper.com in December, 2015
archpaper.com in December, 2015

Between January and April of 2016, the Planetary team executed a complete re-design and re-architecture of their site.

archpaper.com in January, 2017
archpaper.com in January, 2017

Our design strategy focused primarily around a component system, constructing layouts from a small number of atomic units.

Components for content stubs Miscelaneous components

The design system is flexible across mobile and desktop. When we began the redesign process, the Architect’s Newspaper site was not responsive; after the redesign and re-launch, mobile traffic makes up nearly 40% of their visitors.

Mobile view of an article page
Mobile view of an article page

Additionally, the modular design enabled us to have a consistent look and feel across the news, events, and jobs sections of the site, with little additional modification required.

Focusing on performance also allowed us to reduce page load times by 50%, increasing time spent on-site and pages per visit.

By increasing these metrics, and by introducing responsive advertising components, the redesign significantly increased advertising value and unique impressions.

The highlight of the redesign for me, however, was the preservation of content: articles from 2005 are still accessible, and look better than they ever have.

An article from 2005
An article from 2005