Branding and web design for a news media organization

In 2017, I worked on a project of a new online branding guide. Based on my research about online brand management tools I decided to build my own solution, as we needed something easy to use for non-tech people. I designed & coded the website, and I was helping to define some parts of the content. Primarily, I'm responsible for creation of a color palette. In 2019, we reused my website template for television Current Time branding guide.

During the last four years, I have been responsible for creating radio's stationery, merchandise, promotional materials and graphic materials for the building. Also, I spent a significant amount of time working on simple graphics for journalists, such as responsive banners, static maps or social media graphics. Sometimes, I had to deal with company wide graphics that needed to be translated into all the 27 languages. To make our design team's life easier, I was also creating graphic templates for our team, journalists, external graphic designers and various departments.

In 2020, I got the opportunity to dress RFE/RL on the occasion of two important anniversaries. I not only made the anniversary logos, but also social media graphics, framed photos and postcards, email signature templates, tram banners and special section page on the press site.

In 2019, my close colleague initiated the first RFE/RL media hackathon. As a core hackathon team member, I helped to make all the graphics materials and the website. Following the hackathon, the RFE/RL Labs platform was launched, including two other initiatives, the hackX incubator which helps selected hackathon projects to develop and Lab talks which helps to spread ideas about the intersection of technology and news media. I was naturally asked for help with the new sub-brands.

Incremental design of news websites

One of the assignments I enjoyed the most was redesign of a search. Prior to my intervention, there were only simple search results sorted by a date. The new search is based on a decent research about how it's done elsewhere, on interviews with power users and on almost never-ending discussions with backend developers about technical difficulties and limitations. The result is therefore a compromised solution which, however, satisfies most of the user needs and can stand comparison with search pages of other big media companies. In terms of UX, I especially value a lesson learned that pagination – if it's done properly – is not as easy component as it seems! 

Website design & development within the design system

In 2016, I was asked to transform a press section of RFE/RL's English website to a brand-new site which would provide a better way how to present PR related content and solve internal workflow issues. I closely collaborated with a communication department to help them newly organize their content structure and designed & developed new header as well as sections of the site, including interactive map based on Mapbox API. The project successfully solved the internal issues and increased traffic. Today, the website has its own life and it's managed by non-designers, so it is difficult to keep a certain level of professionalism regarding the usability, typography and design.

Independent website design & development

In July 2019, I created a first hackathon website under the very tight deadline which I managed to meet only thanks to the Webflow tool, a dream come true for modern web designers. Since then – when it comes to brochure websites – I no longer take a hand coding as an option. That's why in September 2020, when I was asked to make a concept of RFE/RL Labs website, it was clear from the beginning that this one will be developed in Webflow as well.

In the spring of 2016, I made a following concept of RFE/RL website redesign as a part of my application process. Even though the result doesn't fully reflect my current view on web design and on RFE/RL's brand, I'm still quite proud of what I've done back then. If you're interested, you can read an explication on my old portfolio website.