Culture, Travel, Future & Worklife

BBC.com flourishes from advertisers wanting to leverage from the number one trusted news site. To make BBC.com particularly appealing, the feature sites that offer softer news desire a luxurious makeover to target high-income earners, millennials, gen x and other new names.

Brand Refresh

WORKLIFE

#1752A1

FUTURE

#072856

CULTURE

#482878

TRAVEL

#579E50

Assets & TX

Article Background

#FDFDFD

Assets & TX 2

#D8D8D8

Culture’s Secondary Navigation

#222222

Assets & TX 1

#121212

Typography

Aa

Article Tag,
BBC Reith Sans XBold

Aa

Article Titles,
BBC Reith Serif Light

Aa

Headings & Long Summary,
BBC Reith Sans Medium

Aa

Author and Date,
BBC Reith Sans Multiple

AA

Drop Cap,
BBC Reith Sans Bold Italic

Aa

Pull Quotes,
BBC Reith Sans Light Italic

Aa

Body TX,
BBC Reith Sans Regular

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Image Captions,
BBC Reith Sans Regular

GEL Design System, Grid

The latest updates will now transfer the entire site of Culture’s typography over to the BBC family set of Reith.

This will be accompanied by closely aligning to the Reith brand guidelines for colour and GEL navigation practice.

Before GEL Grid

Need to work on 10 breakpoints. Inconsistent experience across BBC.com. Android device unfriendly

After GEL Grid Foundation

Optimised breakpoints to match AD Groups. Cut down design, development and testing time & cost.

Luxury Refresh

The luxurious makeover was a collaboration piece that included Editorial, Marketing, Sales and BBC Storyworks.

As the task was focused on B2B sales, a desktop-to-desktop approach was taken. However, where possible optimised for mobile and the progressive web app platform.

Global & Local Mastheads

The masthead area must always sit at the top of every page. Local mastheads must always sit between global navigation and local navigation. The font on local mastheads should be BBC Reith regular, at 48 pixels. Any branding in the local masthead must always line up with the BBC blocks

Premium Collection

Collaborating with marketing, sales and editorial, a luxurious dark UI will be offered to sponsors which desire their curated collections to be showcased. A one-up approach was taken from the non-sponsored collections, and specific modules were created based on business needs.

Articles

Flawless ad and image handling, and optimised readability across all devices.

Sponsorship

Centering and increasing the Sponsorship logo size from 88×31 to 132×64 will excite new sponsorship opportunities. Furthermore, the article page now features a highly visible new link back to collections.

An increase in resolution (up to 8K) and image handling now completes a luxurious look and feel for sponsors.

Songbird Integration

It uses artificial intelligence to convert text articles into speech, ‘reading’ them aloud with a synthetic voice.  The BBC worked with Microsoft to create the new voice and AI software, using deep neural networks to create a synthetic voice with a natural tone and clear articulation of words.

Launching globally, the initial content will be part of a series within BBC Worklife called ‘The Life Project’. Its 16 feature articles, which focus on giving readers the tools they need to make life-changing decisions during the pandemic, are now available in audio.

AirPlay & Chromecast

Standard Media Player (SMP) function to allow AirPlay and Chromecast videos directly from the Article, will open new opportunities for sponsors who desire their ads and content to be seen on the big screen.