The San Francisco Standard — Project 02

The website

An award-winning reader experience

With the brand in place, we rebuilt the reader experience on top of it — a ground-up redesign of the site, led by the homepage and story pages, that the California Journalism Awards recognized with first place for Homepage Layout & Design and second place for Story Page Layout & Design.

Context

The Standard ships dozens of stories a day to a skeptical city. The site had to feel established and polished, stay fast and legible, and give a fast-growing newsroom layouts it could fill without breaking the craft.

Approach

The homepage is dense but calm — a clear hierarchy that lets a big lead story breathe while still surfacing the breadth of a daily newsroom.

The redesigned San Francisco Standard homepage shown on a laptop and phone — a dense, editorial front page led by a post-pandemic office-conversion story — beside a 'California Journalism Awards, 1st Place' badge. — Homepage — California Journalism Awards, 1st place

The story page puts the reading first — generous type, a confident lead image, and supporting rails that stay out of the way.

Two redesigned Standard story pages — a Life feature and a Food & Drink piece — beside a 'California Journalism Awards, 2nd Place' badge for Story Page Layout & Design. — Story page — California Journalism Awards, 2nd place

Behind the layouts sits a template and component system — navigation, cards, and section patterns — paired with a quick-turn production setup so the newsroom could ship consistent, high-craft pages at speed.

The identity applied across site templates — navigation, a video thumbnail, and an event graphic — showing the reusable system in use. — Templates & components — the system in use

Outcome

A brand-new newsroom found its audience, and its voice, fast — with a reader experience backed by two California Journalism Awards.