In order to create a professional atmosphere that reflects the Tower’s work ethic and creativity, the design of the Tower Pulse website is essential. Layout, alignment, color scheme and organization are imperative for gaining traction on the website and spreading news to the student body. As Associate Editor of the Tower Pulse, I make it my priority to create a visually enticing and easy-to-navigate website.
Web Design
To emphasize the newest articles of the Tower and catch the eye of site visitors, I added a scrolling banner at the top of the website. Visitors can scroll over the banner (stopping the banner from moving) and then being able to click onto the story they wish to view. This creates a more interactive and appealing home page. Similarly, I updated the media icons under the scrolling banner to make them more visible and updated them to showcase our more active social media such as Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram.
Consistency in the presentation across story categories was also a problem on the Tower website; however, I converted each area into a unified tile. As seen in the first image, the original design looked cluttered and overwhelming, which in turn caused less traction on the website. By converting the organization into the tiles seen in the second image, the website not only gained more views, but also appeared more professional overall.
The Tower Pulse Youtube page was established in 2017 and was in need of an update. By researching Youtube banner design (referencing banners of The LA Times and New York Times), organizing the videos into easy-to-find categories, updating the profile picture and adding the Tower editorial to the description, the Youtube page blossomed into a more professional and coordinated page.
As part of a collaboration with the Grosse Pointe South Looking Glass and marketing towards the student body, I fashioned the “Tower Tribute” student section page on the Tower Website to be different from the other tiled areas in order for it to be notable. I learned how to create a widget-based custom page and categories on SNO to curate stories specifically for the students. This took a lot of trial and error, but in the end the results were worth it and the page appears to be seamless.