Overview
The Toronto Star
Editorial Design
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Design Systems
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Art Direction
2015-2017
As Art Director, Digital at the Toronto Star, I helped shape the visual direction of Star Touch, an ambitious digital publishing platform that reimagined how the newspaper's journalism could be experienced beyond print.
I directed a team of 20+ designers, establishing visual standards and creative workflows for a new digital editorial environment while remaining hands-on in the work. From breaking news and investigative journalism to immersive multimedia features, I art-directed and designed stories in close collaboration with editors, reporters, photographers, illustrators, developers, and video teams.
One challenge was to translate the craft of traditional editorial design into an interactive medium, bringing together typography, photography, illustration, motion, and storytelling to give individual stories their own character within a cohesive publication.
Star Touch attracted an engaged early audience, averaging more than 45,000 weekday sessions and 50,000 weekend sessions. The experience reinforced an approach to creative direction that continues to inform my work today: establishing a strong visual foundation while leaving room for distinctive, expressive ideas.
