01 — Client
The project
Vestnik Kipra (“Cyprus Herald”) is a Russian-language publication about Cyprus: news, analysis, interviews, events. My part in this project was the concept design of the online edition — what the site should be so that the paper reads like a paper on the web. The build and markup were done by another team.
02 — Context
The task
A print publication has a character of its own: sections, issues, advertising pages. Online, all of that easily dissolves into a faceless news blog — the design has to preserve the newspaper nature.
There is a lot of material: a daily feed, dozens of sections — from economics and legislation to travel and gastronomy — an events calendar and partner advertising. The concept has to hold this mass in a clear structure.
And the paper has its own loyal readership. The online edition must be recognisable from the first screen — the logo, the brand colours, the tone.
03 — Solution
The concept
3.1
The homepage as a front page
The freshest on top: a “New on the site” block and daily digests. Below — thematic spreads: interviews, history and places, culture, travel and gastronomy, expert columns, events. The reader browses the homepage the way they unfold a newspaper.
3.2
Sections carry the navigation
Every section gets its own card feed: articles are sorted into dozens of sections, and the structure is built for thousands of pieces — headline, photo, standfirst, repeat. An economics reader never trips over the events listings.
3.3
Advertising as part of the layout
Partner ad slots are built into the concept like pages in a newspaper: banners stand in their places and don’t look alien. Newsletter sign-up and the newsroom contacts are part of the frame too, not late patches.
04 — Outcome
The result
The site was built to this concept and lives by it: the daily feed on top, thematic blocks below, partner advertising in its places.
Today the publication’s archive holds almost 24,000 articles — the structure laid down in the concept has carried a daily newspaper and keeps carrying it.