Journal B, smart design focuses on culture and politics in Bern
Last week Journal B from Bern, Switzerland launched their new website. Built with Newscoop, the site is an example of a happy marriage between journalism and design. They provide a clear focus on the culture and political issues of Bern. The Journal B motto is pure and simple: "sagt was Bern bewegt."
A local voice
In Switzerland, four national languages and vibrant cultural diversity contribute to a long-standing commitment to media. Yet due to its small size and bordering countries it is also heavily influenced by outside media. In recent years publications have sprung up in order to support the growth of local journalism. TagesWoche, of Basel, who also built their site with Newscoop have been at the heart of this development. And so, Journal B maintains a mission to broaden the voice of media in Switzerland by offering a local perspective on Bern.
Meaningful design
As the web develops, sophisticated design follows quickly behind. When the design team, Apps with love, took on the project, they custom built Journal B to reflect the emphasis on culture and politics through a simple, yet stylish approach. They used a colour scheme to split the topics. This allows readers to easily mix and match their content or shuffle it back to view the politics and culture sections separately.
Journal B
Smart screens get smarter
Designing information to look good on different screen sizes used to be a big hassle. But Journal B has worked with a scalable screen design. This allows the website to look great no matter the device you view it on. This is an exciting technological feature behind the project that will also help maintain a good-looking site in the future, somewhat like good architecture provides a foundation to a well built building.
To Journal B with love
Apps with love took command of the Newscoop platform moulding the software to suit the needs of Journal B. This was also exciting for Sourcefabric and the Newscoop team. As more projects are built with the open CMS for professional news, it is valuable to see how other design teams work with it. In many ways this helps chart the future of Newscoop. By working with different groups we broaden our knowledge base. Depending on how organizations like Journal B and Apps with love use the open source software, Sourcefabric gains new experiences that are taken forward to support new projects.
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