Phew! Redesigning a website from scratch is not an easy task. Take it from DG editors Tom Biederbeck and Marcy Slane, art director Kathie Alexander, and Steve Kapsinow, editor of the Graphics.com network, which DG is now part of. With the help of many others, they diligently worked on a new web presence for DG for months, bringing it to a semi-conclusion August 1—semi because the site will constantly evolve, being updated with new content every week.

While Biederbeck, Slane, and Alexander were responsible for the content and layout of the website, their experience is in print design, so aspects of their wish lists didn’t translate well to the web. “A website is always a challenge for print designers,” says Alexander. “It’s a completely different monster.”

Kapsinow had the role of separating the “dream” site from web reality. “One request that stands out is changing the site’s color palette with each issue, which was too ambitious and impractical,” explains Kapsinow. “Think of a website as one constantly growing issue—design and navigation should be consistent.” Another problem with the staff’s original recommendations was that layouts were too precise. Not an issue for print, but when a site is to be updated weekly, strict layouts can cause problems.

“I wanted the site to be a resource of information and inspiration,” Alexander says, “a place for designers to visit when stumped by a design problem, to learn something new with every visit.” Kapsinow successfully combined the magazine group’s redesign wishes with the constraints of the web, creating a site that everyone—DG staff, upper management, and especially readers—is happy with so far.

“We’re thrilled to be out there in the web environment with a site that offers a lot of content,” notes Biederbeck. “Our site is different from most design magazines in that we’re not fearful that posting free content on the web will hurt our print circulation. We think visitors will be intrigued by what they see and want to get the whole picture by subscribing to our print version. This is simply a great way to offer more to the design community.”

1. Original site The original DG site missed the mark in several areas: There was no archive of past issues, it didn’t provide any content besides a general table of contents and short introductions for each article, and its branding was pretty much nonexistent.
2. Fonts The internet doesn’t lend itself well to a variety of fonts. We weren’t able to use Gotham, one of our signature fonts, on our site, but Verdana is a reasonable match.
3. Color The concept of implementing an accent color was carried over from the magazine. Art director Kathie Alexander chose cyan, which works well with most images, and is a bright, eye-catching hue that doesn’t hinder readability.
4. Branding elements The circle motif was brought into the new DG website for branding consistency. We sought to carry the personality of DG throughout the redesign, regardless of web constraints.