Winnipeg’s only independent digital news outlet unveils new visual identity

WINNIPEG, Man. — The look and feel of ChrisD.ca has changed to make it even easier for audiences to get their news and entertainment fix.

As the only independent digital news outlet in Winnipeg, ChrisD.ca reaches an average of 60,000 viewers per day via web, social media channels and email news blasts.

Since 2007, the site has delivered a different experience when it comes to local and national news, sports and entertainment coverage that’s both beneficial for readers and advertisers.

And now it’s even better.

ChrisD.ca creator and managing editor, Chris Dell, along with his team, are excited to unveil a new visual identity and an even more user-friendly site for those who depend on their smartphones to keep them up-to-date with what’s going on in their city.

“Simply put, we have worked on making the way you get your news better tailored to what people really want,” said Ron Greasley, senior strategist at Deschenes Regnier, a Winnipeg-based marketing firm who, along with graphic designers Colin Sawatzky and Réanne Chamberland, have worked with Dell to revamp the website.

Sawatzky says the new logo and website design will not only enhance how readers get their information, but better reflects ChrisD.ca’s personality and style.

“We have made it easier for viewers to get to the main story, to search for past stories and for advertisers to be more visible,” Sawatzky said. “It has been a very fun process creating a new look for a media outlet that truly gives readers, and advertisers, what they want.”

Dell, along with a deputy editor and a photographer, started ChrisD.ca in March 2007 and has since changed the way viewers get their local news. Over the past nine years the site’s team has grown to include 14 contributors that provide quick, concise and easy to read content online.

“We’re coming up to our 10th anniversary next spring and we have evolved so much from our infancy,” Dell said. “The way news is consumed, particularly digitally, has changed vastly in what seems like an eternity in Internet years.”

What’s new?

• Ease of use — we’ve made it easier to navigate your way around the website with a cleaner menu and subtle colour changes. But we didn’t completely abandon the blue (people love blue!) The navigation menu also sticks to the top of the site as you scroll, so you’re always only a click away from the content that’s most important to you.
• Faster — speed is a big improvement on the new ChrisD.ca. We’ve removed memory-hungry elements to decrease load times on all browsers.
• Better mobile browsing — visiting on mobile devices is vastly improved. A new mobile-friendly website delivers all the content you see on a desktop, but in a simplified and clean format.
• More emphasis on the latest news — the top story (or newest item) now receives higher billing with a larger image than the older content below it, which can be shifted down based on priority.
• A shift in advertising positioning — our advertisers have told us they wanted an increased presence, but we didn’t want to sacrifice the reader experience or visual elements of the layout. We repositioned the leaderboard (728×90) to the very top of the site to break it out of the navigation menu. We also made the half page ad block (300×600) stick outside of the content on all home and archive pages as the visitor scrolls.
• New logo — how do you like the new logo? We said goodbye to the city skyline in our old logo and went back to the basics. The ‘D’ has a speech bubble effect to symbolize conversation. The remaining text includes a mixture of both serif and sans-serif fonts. A blue version and a white version will be used interchangeably across all marketing and design elements.

It's a big day around here with our new website and ad campaign. Let us know what you think! https://t.co/ss0V1bwn7V pic.twitter.com/FEvvV7jThU

— ChrisD.ca (@ChrisDca) June 20, 2016