Al Jazeera.net

I worked to create a design system to service a fast-paced news site in the Arabic language.

Overview

Al Jazeera is one of the world's leading international news broadcasters based in Doha, Qatar. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs TV channel, it expanded into a network with several speciality television channels and companion websites.

My role

Mark Boulton Design had been commissioned to redesign their online platforms following their strict editorial guidelines and aiming to increase participation by young people from the Middle East in politics. I worked as a Senior Designer to help create a design language for the Arabic language site aljazeera.net and also the companion website to their Documentary channel.

How we got there

Our first challenge with the Arabic sites was that we didn’t speak the language. We had to work purely with shapes and spacing to judge the typography and rhythm of the site. Nathan, the lead designer on the project created a browser plugin that would allow us to flip the site horizontally so we could ‘see’ it the way we were used to (running left to right) and judge the layout more accurately.

Outcomes and lessons

News articles grow organically from a small headline and paragraph of text to contain images, video and long-form content added over time so we had to create a design would support this. We provided a range of templates to suit different content types and also provided component variants so that when there was a breaking news story, it could grow and evolve as the story developed.