BusinessDesk is New Zealand’s source for quality business and financial journalism. Launched as an independent publisher in 2008, they are now owned by NZME and are rapidly growing. Their design language was no longer representing their trusted status, so Matt Martell, BusinessDesk general manager, approached me to lead a rebrand and redesign of all BusinessDesk digital assets: responsive website, emails, and mobile app.

Challenges included: balancing information density (that “news” look) with whitespace for optimal legibility for an older target demographic, managing advertising and sponsorship placements, optimising news for different screen sizes and devices, and working to an accelerated development schedule.

We stripped back the brand to a new pairing of handsome serif fonts that would create the clean and trusted look BusinessDesk needed and then expanded from there to build out a comprehensive design system that brings more consistency, better variety, and improved legibility across all BusinessDesk content.

The new design has been widely praised by BusinessDesk’s loyal readers, and we’re confident it will surpass our success metrics for increased read time and improved subscription conversions.