Feature Article
Feature Article
01
Project Overview
Templatise powerful storytelling through the unfolding of events.
With a history of over representation of senior Caucasian males and generic imagery on The Australian Financial Review, we asked ourselves, how could we create a template that balanced different types of content — from candid lunch interviews with the best and brightest, through to investigative deep dive journalism. A template that didn’t force the hand of editorial to highlight meaningless imagery when better wasn’t available and could set the right tone to deliver an immersive story, no matter the context.
(Details)
Type
Editorial Feature
Brand
The Australian Financial Review
Company
Nine Entertainment Co.
Category
News Publishing
Role
Lead Designer
02
Challenge
It’s easy to envision a feature about architecture or travel, but what about in the context of business and finance?
When we think about the type of content the Financial Review often reports about, we needed to cater better for other end of the spectrum — the deep dive investigations about financial collapse, political corruption, or turmoil across the sea — stories that are more narrative led than image.
The existing template severely restricted story-telling elements, often making it difficult to differentiate from standard articles. With a new content management system, we wanted to design a new template that enabled editorial to be purposeful in their story-telling — encouraging creative freedom and flexibility but without additional overhead in their workflow. We needed to better elevate the content, worthy of the time spent on its creation and curation. Replicating the pride of holding a luxurious high-end magazine, but within the digital realm, creating space for luxury advertisers.
Feature articles on the Financial Review, prior to the redesign. Images were forcefully placed every four paragraphs universally across templates. No other story-telling elements like pull quotes.
03
Production
The telling of news. Design for content.
It is a poor assumption that feature articles are image-led and long form. Rather, they are in-depth news stories that go beyond providing the most important facts — using storytelling devices to help the reader connect with the overall narrative, abounding with details that makes for pleasurable reading.
Through multiple workshops with editorial, we discovered they can be defined as stories not written in an inverted pyramid style — most important information at the top, additional details following. Rather they focus on the unfolding of events, the telling of news. Armed with example references, certain themes became apparent. Keeping in mind minimal overhead, we just needed to rethink how we were able to create a template that provided flexibility and optionality — enabling the newsroom to do what they do best, story tell.
No matter what the context or assets available, the feature article template signals a strong piece of journalism through first impressions. Leaning on the header space to let readers know that they’re about to be taken on a journey.
The story type is defined by the header style. Easily changed in the content management system depending on the image aspect ratio selected.
For the stories that unfold through visuals, and rely on the reality captured in photos.
01
Visually led
Narrative driven
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Deep dive stories that lean less on imagery to take readers on a journey.
For the stories that wish to highlight a singular element, like the influential and their journey.
03
Persona focused
Whilst we’ve label these templates as such, editorial have complete freedom to use any template as they please to tell the story.
04
Commercial
A premium space for sophisticated, high-end advertorials.
Not only does the Financial Review audience come for business and finance news, but also to see rewarding ways to invest their time and money in a life well lived. Whilst the feature article is designed to cater for the wider content spectrum, life and luxury content still makes up the majority. With an increase in luxury digital ad spend by sponsors, which rose +73% in FY17, we needed to enable brand safe spaces through thoughtful ad funded products and audience experiences.
Feature articles allow the Financial Review to grow a new generation of digital subscribers by cultivating brand affiliation and value for non-traditional segments. Leveraging thought leadership and rich story-telling formats to attract not only future subscribers, but also advertisers.
