C Magazine
Digital Platform for a Contemporary Art and Criticism Periodical
2022
| Client | C Magazine |
|---|---|
| Project | Digital Platform for a Contemporary Art and Criticism Periodical |
| Service | Web |
| Sector | Art, Publishing |
C Magazine is a renowned Canadian contemporary art and criticism periodical that functions as a forum for significant ideas in art and its contexts. Each issue explores a theme that engages with emerging and mainstream perspectives through artistic writing, reviews and artist projects. Founded in 1984, the magazine was ready for a shift to digital to showcase its rich content and make it accessible to a wider audience.
Principal received the mandate to develop the strategy, content architecture, design and programming of their new online platform. Following the graphic language established by Raf Rennie in the redesign of the 2019 print magazine, the challenge was to keep the essence of the brand by addressing the constraints and limitations of the web while taking advantage of the opportunities that digital mediums offer in a periodical context.
With this in mind, great care was put on typography, layout and the relationship between images and text content, this brought more flexibility than the old platform. The platform offers a comfortable way to explore and consult the site’s content in different ways. The site offers the possibility of browsing by theme, by type of publication, by date and by issue. Searching the platform and the magazine's archives allows for better accessibility to past articles and allows users to access content more easily. For the site’s media to succeed in its digital transformation, content has to be monetizable without distorting their brand. It also has to offer a simple and complete experience that meets user expectations, all while supporting and facilitating internal operations.
On the new C Magazine platform, users with an account can now access exclusive content, view digital copies of all issues published since 1984 and maintain a reading list. The C Magazine team is now able to efficiently control access to its content with the implementation of a paywall and subscription options. In addition, they now have much more flexible editing tools at their disposal, allowing them to highlight content on the website with the same rigor as printed content.
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