The Quartz Site Uses A Creative Layout To Stand Out From The Content Competition
Quartz is a business-focused digital media site that is aimed at professionals — providing them with the news content they need, when they need it and with ease. And it comes with a nerdy, tech team and backbone that is helping to propel it into the future, understanding the power of the mobile-first world and of social media.
We’re also a nerdy bunch, embracing the opportunity to create a newsroom that is wholly focused on digital storytelling. We view the creation of Quartz as just the beginning of an ongoing process in discovering the best ways to report and deliver information online. Developers and journalists, sometimes one-and-the-same, sit next to each other in the Quartz newsroom as we continually iterate and experiment. We know that the future of news will be written in code.
You can see this modern, forward-thinking in its website which is responsive across platforms. But you can also see it in the cutting-edge design and creative layout that gives users something fun and exciting to interact with as they scroll through articles.
The homepage is exciting and modern, with a variety of sections separated using colors, images, and overlapping elements.
The background is a simple, grey background which allows for the article titles, newsletter boxes and bright images to jump from the screen and engage in an enthusiastic and innovative way.
The Q of the brand name is embedded into the design, with flashing colors and images appearing and disappearing as you scroll. And this is just the start. The overall layout is nothing like you’ve seen in other news sites because of its dedication to being modern and fresh, providing an experience unlike any other.
Similarly, the menu bar is different — not providing specific news categories, but instead showing consumers what’s trending, what’s new and what the brand thinks are the biggest topics of the day.
And each of these pages is organized in a clean way.  Articles sit in a list format — each article comes with its title, and image and a preview. And each article is separated by a clean black line making it obvious which article is which.
The articles themselves are also powerfully organized, with the header image taking up the majority of the screen and welcoming visitors in a bold and engaging way.
Overall, this layout is much different than other media sites, making it immediately stand out.
Exciting Rollover Effects Add A Cutting-Edge Vibe To The News Media Brand
Unlike many other media sites, Quartz wants users to interact and engage. And they promote this with imagery and effects that get users involved.
This is a brand that understands the importance of creating a powerful and compelling user experience. It can’t just provide people with the content they want but has to do so in a creative and cool way. Because people are more likely to think positively about a brand and remember it if they can interact with it.
This site promotes interaction with its exciting rollover effects — whether it’s an article, an image or another content block. Users can roll their mouse over it and the colors will change and the image shifts.
Similarly, slight scrolling effects add a depth and an immersive quality as users scroll down, feeling like they’re being pulled into the site and its content.
These modern effects promote engagement but they also give the brand a modern, cutting-edge feel that aligns it as an industry leader. It’s a site dedicated to innovative content, and you can see that right off the bat thanks to its design.
Similarly, moving images, animations and gifs add a playfulness that promotes interactivity and positive feelings. This is a brand that’s using imagery, dynamic design elements and creativity to stand out from the competition and relate on a more personal level — and it looks like it’s working.
This is a brand that’s only been in existence for six years, and they’re only moving forward. This is thanks to its dedication to moving forward in design and content structure. It doesn’t want to offer its users a boring layout or lacking design. It wants to excite and inspire inside and out and it’s doing everything it can to do just that.
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Seamless Navigation And A Clean Menu Bar Ease Users Along Their Navigational Journey
We’ve already talked about the innovative and creative layout that excites on impact. And we’ve also talked about the exciting and superb interactive and engaging elements that make this website shine.
But we have yet to mention the ease of navigation that emphasizes a user experience that stuns. There’s a unique edge to this as well that fosters an atmosphere of creativity, forward-thinking and authority.
Instead of breaking down the website into news categories and niches — like business, tech and more — this website only offers three news categories. These categories are Our Picks, Latest and Popular. And they even offer and Obsessions category that touches on topics a little more outside its normal realm, but is cool and fun to interact with still.
And these menu bar options are readily available, sitting boldly at the top of the screen and following users as they journey down the page. This is intuitive and smart — making it easy and efficient for users to access the content they want to see, and providing them access to content they didn’t even know they wanted.
This menu bar is simple and straightforward at the top of the screen. There are only a few options for users to choose from, simplifying the process but also giving them the freedom to explore topics they never knew they would be interested in.
This creates a stunning user experience unlike other brands and news sites. And it promotes that modernity and edginess that aligns Quartz as a growing leader.
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Quartz’s Short But Successful History
Quartz is powerful and robust digital media outlet founded only six years ago. It’s an entity geared towards a business-focused audience and aims to provide professionals with the valuable information they need to go about their day.
According to the brand:
Quartz is a digitally native news outlet, born in 2012, for business people in the new global economy. We publish bracingly creative and intelligent journalism with a broad worldview, built primarily for the devices closest at hand: tablets and mobile phones. Like Wired in the 1990s and The Economist in the 1840s, Quartz embodies the era in which it is being created. The financial crisis that recently engulfed much of the world wasn’t just a cyclical decline or a correction or even a bubble bursting. It was a breaking point. And its shockwaves exposed a fundamentally changed economic order with new leaders and ways of doing business. Our coverage of this new global economy is rooted in a set of defining obsessions: core topics and knotty questions of seismic importance to business professionals. These are the issues that energize our newsroom, and we invite you to obsess about them along with us.
The content on this digital media site is focused on business, the economy and the way the world works. It’s an intuitive brand that knows innately what its audience wants to read, and aims to provide them with that content in a fun and exciting way, transcending the traditional media site for one that is interactive, in-depth and relatable.
This is an open and honest website passionate about providing quality, truthful and unbiased content. And it’s one of the many growing news sites targeting younger, more open-minded audiences and giving them exactly what they’re looking for in an easy-to-navigate and clear platform.
And this passion for being different is apparent in its website design.
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Quartz’s Quirky Yet Simple Web Design Puts The News Front And Center
Quartz gives professionals young and old access to content that is catered to them and is displayed in a cool, creative and innovative way that excites readers, unlike other media sites, aligning the brand as one that is dedicated to being modern and different.
The layout if fluid and fun, the navigation is seamless and exciting and the interactive and engaging design elements like rollovers and animations make it obvious that this tech-backed brand is passionate about embracing a technological world, infusing these elements into its design to stand out and stand strong.
This young and growing brand has a purpose and a lot of potential to shake up the digital media world. And it does so by understanding its audience and harnessing the power of innovative technologies.
