In search of a comprehensible tool for outstanding editorials
Great editorials revolve around the overall composition: how things are put together, what fonts are chosen, how they’re paired, and how main ideas are illustrated. But they’re also about making a piece that’s relevant and stands out among all the noise in contemporary design.
Back then, Complex needed a solution that encompassed all those nuances and allowed setting up multiple websites, cover stories, and features that create an interactive, dynamic experience for Complex Media.
The team came across Readymag in 2020 and found a responsive, easy-to-customize, and easy-to-learn tool for their gripping editorials.
Collaboration on the visuals for a refined result
The editorial team releases at least seven longreads per quarter, plus other branded content. The overall production process is built like this: editors come up with a text or an idea and pass it to the Head of the Creative department. Once the idea is shaped into a distinct task, she relays it to the design team. There we have 5–6 designers who work specifically with the tool and collaborate on design and content. Then the Head of the department assigns each story a different designer, and we start to draw out possible designs around the text. The design solutions depend on the kind of content that’s set to come out in the next few months.
When we start our work, we first search for inspiration and blaze a trail that the visuals will take. That means putting together mood boards, coming up with keywords, and just tossing ideas back and forth between the Senior Designer, the Art Director, and the Creative director to find the fits that really develop the idea.
Because Readymag is so collaborative, it's easy for teammates to view the work in progress, give feedback and make changes on the go.
Also, Readymag appeared to be an easy-to-templatize solution, so we came up with a few templates for specific content types to speed up our processes.
In search of a comprehensible tool for outstanding editorials
Great editorials revolve around the overall composition: how things are put together, what fonts are chosen, how they’re paired, and how main ideas are illustrated. But they’re also about making a piece that’s relevant and stands out among all the noise in contemporary design.
Back then, Complex needed a solution that encompassed all those nuances and allowed setting up multiple websites, cover stories, and features that create an interactive, dynamic experience for Complex Media.
The team came across Readymag in 2020 and found a responsive, easy-to-customize, and easy-to-learn tool for their gripping editorials.
Collaboration on the visuals for a refined result
The editorial team releases at least seven longreads per quarter, plus other branded content. The overall production process is built like this: editors come up with a text or an idea and pass it to the Head of the Creative department. Once the idea is shaped into a distinct task, she relays it to the design team. There we have 5–6 designers who work specifically with the tool and collaborate on design and content. Then the Head of the department assigns each story a different designer, and we start to draw out possible designs around the text. The design solutions depend on the kind of content that’s set to come out in the next few months.
When we start our work, we first search for inspiration and blaze a trail that the visuals will take. That means putting together mood boards, coming up with keywords, and just tossing ideas back and forth between the Senior Designer, the Art Director, and the Creative director to find the fits that really develop the idea.
Because Readymag is so collaborative, it's easy for teammates to view the work in progress, give feedback and make changes on the go.
Also, Readymag appeared to be an easy-to-templatize solution, so we came up with a few templates for specific content types to speed up our processes.
About Complex:
Complex was founded in 2002 as a bimonthly US magazine for youth, focusing on pop culture, music, trends and sports.
With the onset of the digital era, it went online and global under the name Complex Media, and now keeps 120,000,000 people throughout the world updated on youth culture.
About Complex:
Complex was founded in 2002 as a bimonthly US magazine for youth, focusing on pop culture, music, trends and sports.
With the onset of the digital era, it went online and global under the name Complex Media, and now keeps 120,000,000 people throughout the world updated on youth culture.