NBC News Redesigns Site, Adds More Visuals, Video

NBC News has unveiled the first taste of a site-wide redesign to come, with its new digital verticals Mach and Better.

The new design will also live on Think, a new vertical to launch this summer that will cover commentary, opinion and analysis from experts across a range of fields.

Mach, which covers technology, innovation and the future, and Better, focusing on health, wellness, finances, relationships and life hacks, were originally launched as pop-up verticals in November 2016 and February 2017, respectively, to test audience and advertisers demand.

In a blog post, Moritz Gimbel, VP of product and design at NBC News Digital, said his team found the sites “needed more video and visuals, more flexible content creation and dynamic curation capabilities,” as well as “better re-circulation of content and consumption through the full network of sites, and more premium advertising offerings, including seamless integration of branded content."

He added the network chose not to redesign NBC News’ homepage or “other highly visible portions of the site” because it “can doom the project from the outset.” Instead, the team chose to redesign “from the outside in” by starting with three new verticals.

The redesign includes a new font family, color palette, image treatments, content packaging, motion language, iconography and overall layout system.

NBC News’ product and design staff teamed up with digital agency Code and Theory to revamp the design of Mach and Better.

Around one-third of the project’s staff came from Code and Theory and two-thirds from NBC News, according to Gimbel.

Code and Theory also redesigned Vogue.com in 2014.

Additional features will roll out this year. “Over the next nine months, we will redesign and rebuild every product and pixel at NBC News Digital,” Gimbel wrote.

Separately, The Atlantic announced it has reached a record audience of 42.3 million in May, the same month The Atlantic.com underwent a redesign to its homepage and published viral story “My Family’s Slave.”

It was The Atlantic’s second-most-read story of all time. The article helped TheAtlantic.com reach two consecutive days of record audience, on May 16 and May 17, with 4.4 million and 4.8 million uniques, respectively.

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