Gadget magazine Stuff asked Clearleft to help bring the high production values and design flair of the print publication to their website.

To achieve this we began by deconstructing their magazine to understand its architectural structure and visual design patterns. For several months the walls of the office were plastered with pages from the magazines and print-outs detailing the patterns that emerged.

Working in tandem, our user experience designers and visual designers re-assembled these patterns in a way that made sense for the digital medium. Great examples of this can be seen on the individual review pages and top 10 pages, which reference their printed counterparts but feel wholly native to the web.

With the iPad launching part way through the project, we wanted to make sure it worked well and looked great on tablet devices. Sadly this was before the times of responsive design, but we were quick to ensure that the key components of the site, like the main carousel and innovative “inspire-a-tron” were touch-enabled.

The site proved to be a huge success both with readers and with our clients at Haymarket. As such, we were immediately asked to work on new project for their WhatCar? brand, set to launch soon.