After a successful redesign of BusinessDesk – New Zealand’s business and financial news source – NZME brought me back for an even more ambitious challenge: a complete redesign of The New Zealand Herald’s homepage, navigation, story cards, and article pages. I led this effort, collaborating closely with the Herald’s product and UX teams to create a comprehensive digital design system for the next generation of their website and app.

This project required bringing the entire organisation on the journey – aligning management, editorial, journalism, marketing, advertising, and product design around shared goals, all while championing a user-centric point of view. We achieved this through cross-department workshops, user testing and data-driven validation to resolve differing opinions and guide design decisions.

We went back to fundamentals, starting with a new typographic foundation to elevate the Herald’s visual identity. We selected Söhne by Klim Type Foundry – a refined, Kiwi-made typeface that set the tone for the rest of the design system. From there, we developed a cleaner, clearer, and more consistent story-card design, built around strong typography, purposeful colour, bold image treatment, and a strict yet flexible layout grid.

The navigation was restructured to help readers quickly find what’s most relevant to them. We introduced more personalisation features that allow subscribers to tailor their news feed. Advertising formats were redesigned to preserve revenue while reducing distraction and improving performance. Multi-media experiences were improved for video, podcasts, and audio articles. The Herald Premium brand was refreshed to clearly distinguish premium content and scale seamlessly across new product verticals.

After 18 months of gradual rollout, the new Herald website and app have been praised for their clarity, contemporary design, and continued trust as New Zealand’s most-read news source.