Boston, MA
A Powerful Brand Story
Though The Emancipator is young in age, it is rooted in the history and legacy of the Black experience. About pages help do the heavy lifting of conveying the brand message by telling an inspirational story of why they exist — to end racism.
Assigning Style
Following The Emancipator’s original style principals, we brought the aesthetic into their new experience, expanding the style where needed using complimentary combinations of fonts, color and size for categories, bylines and section titles.
Illustrations that anchor
Some topics present significant challenges for photographic representation. Thus, The Emancipator engages top-tier editorial illustrators to render conceptually intricate subject matter. Their skilled editors excel at deconstructing topics for broader public understanding. This potent amalgamation of imagery and text enables them to maintain a distinctive presence.
Iterating on Utility
As we developed approaches to navigation, we pushed the bounds. We started from a minimal state, and progressively explored how options like a secondary section navigation could aid the user experience and help visitors quickly find what they are looking for.
A Bold Overlay Menu
We wanted to make the website browsing experience delightful. Using a full page overlay, the hamburger navigation offers a visual pause, and a minimal number of menu items. The result is a powerful brand accent that gives an unexpected, yet thoughtful presentation.
An Enhanced Grid
Borrowing from the brand language of organic, scrapbook-like shaped and arrangements, we added visual interest to what is otherwise, standard article headlines. The change in shape offers a rhythm that gives article display a boost.
Adapting Social Video
Producing platform-specific content can bear fruit. With the right planning, social video can feel as native to the on-site experience as the social media experience. In this case, The Emancipator built-in a vertical video into their homepage layout. It’s a great example of extending the reach of social assets for casual and owned audiences.