The Daily Memphian: Day Two
“🎵Everybody looks good at the starting line. But going the distance is the hard part, son 🎵”
—Paul Thorn (musician, artist, and winner of boxing’s Mid-South Middleweight Championship in Memphis, TN)
Midnight in Memphis, September 17, 2018, day one. Something big happened: a server lit up, and the neon glow of a news site flicked on for the first time. The Daily Memphian went live.
What really matters, though, is what happens on day two and each day after that. On September 18, it happened all over again, but with new words and images and video content. In the first days, people will talk about the publication itself. After a while, though, people won’t talk about the publication any more, they’ll talk about what it says.
Obviously Crazy
Day one: Earlier this summer, I was running between meetings when I fielded a call to set up a hasty introduction. Some folks who heard we’re the best product designers in the city wanted to meet right away. I only had three quarters of an hour to slot them in at the end of the day, and they said, “We’ll come to you.” The meeting went well, and it went long. When they told me what they wanted to do, I couldn’t believe how audacious it was, and how exciting.
Day two: The next morning, I gathered the team around and asked, “Who wants to design an online news site?” The job: help an upstart publication with more than 20 seasoned writers revive journalism in our city. Our role would be to design a user experience on par with The Washington Post and New York Times. From scratch.
We’d have 90 days, so it was obviously crazy. Good thing we’re out of our minds and up for a good challenge. For the last several months, Simple Focus and Clear Function have been working hand-in-hand with the staff of The Daily Memphian to design and build a platform to bring journalism home. For Memphians, by Memphians.
High Fives or Hot Takes
When we started the project, we didn’t set out to win any awards, we just set about designing the news site that Memphis deserves. That is to say, as good as the best in the world, far better than most.
It performs flawlessly across devices so readers get what they’re after—local, important and engaging news. It’s easy to share and easy to get around. It gives the publishers the tools they need. The reception so far has been warm, but who knows, maybe fellow creatives and technologists in town will have opinions about our design decisions or technology choices, maybe there will be high fives or hot takes. Better yet, maybe they won’t say much of anything because the site just does its job well. Whatever comes, we’ll listen to the feedback and make improvements.
And for day two: when those designers and technologists have moved on, the staff of The Daily Memphian will still be there, publishing local content and illuminating Memphis with a platform that works the way it was designed to work. This is more than good for Memphis, it’s a model for the rest of the country.
As a Memphis-based firm, we’re humbled to be a part of this movement and can’t wait to read the next issue, and the next, and the next. Thank you to everyone involved who’s made the commitment to our city (and the idea of local journalism across America) to do things the right way, the Memphis way.
Our job was simple: to design and build a website with a solid user experience. It just happens that the words flowing through this website have the ability to help Memphians connect, educate themselves, know each other better, and engage in issues that are important to our families, neighborhoods and future.
Some of the content will undoubtedly challenge our city’s leaders and institutions. But by virtue of even existing in the first place (and at this level of execution), the whole endeavor casts a flattering light on our city, on Memphians.
