Paper Magazine

Overview

PAPER is a New York magazine about fashion, music, nightlife and art, founded in 1984. It became famous for the 2014 Kim Kardashian cover that set out to "break the internet", and today it lives online at papermag.com, close to a young audience that follows it on social media.

At RebelMouse, the company where I worked as a UX/UI designer from 2022 to 2024, I worked on the redesign of papermag.com. RebelMouse builds websites for publishers on its own content management system (CMS). The PAPER team wanted a more visual site, where the photos lead. Their references were bold and experimental, with deconstructed layouts, loud colors and unusual type, and the new site had to carry that spirit on a minimalist, almost brutalist base.

My Role

I was a UX/UI designer on the redesign. I joined the calls with the PAPER team, turned those references into wireframes, then into prototypes and the final design in Figma: the homepage, the category sections and the article templates, on desktop and mobile. It was one of the largest brands I have worked with.

Key Contributions

Visual First Homepage. A carousel of featured cover stories with large photos at the top, then the latest stories labeled by category, a newsletter sign up and the most popular stories. I designed two versions: in one the story title sits above the photo, in the other below it.

Five Article Templates. (1) A day-to-day article page for everyday stories. (2) A cover story page that opens with a large photo, in a black and a white version, with or without a carousel. (3) A full bleed feature story, with the photo across the whole screen. (4) An article with branded content, for sponsored stories. (5) An aggregate page that lists stories.

Built to Keep Reading. Following the RebelMouse practices for publishers, the article pages end in an endless feed of stories, the same one as on the homepage, starting with the next cover story, so the reader keeps going. A side column and a "Next up" list of related stories bring more along the way.

Ads That Fit. The templates have advertisement slots between the content, and sponsored stories get their own branded content template.

Mobile Versions. The homepage and the templates have mobile layouts 320 pixels wide, except the full bleed story.

Visual Language. Minimalist black and white with a red accent, Arial Black in the titles and Arial in the text, and large photos that lead each story.