Jenata Dnes, the oldest print magazine in Bulgaria, issued for the first time in 1945.

The magazine owners addressed a request to Design Picnic Studio for overall redesign of their old website which was not relevant to latest web & user experience standards.

The big challenge in front of our team in Design Picnic Studio was to lay a special emphasis upon the long-read articles written by well known authors.

The main audience of the website are middle-aged women who love spending time on reading. Design Picnic Studio adopted an approach to create a clean text-oriented layout with beautiful typography.

Since the good articles are the main element in the website, a special attention has been given to the authors. We have represented them by a photo placed next to their name, а special section on the home page and а beautifully designed profile page.

We have focused on the good typography and the specifics of Bulgarian Cyrillic. It has some differences from the more popular Russian Cyrillic – mostly in the more elongated small letters which make the text more readable. You can read more about the differences between Bulgarian and Russian alphabet here.

For best readability we have chosen a clear white background with distinctive black letters and easy-to-read serif font. The only coloured accent is soft pink, not too aggressive but warm and feminine.

Having the large and constantly increasing mobile traffic in mind, we have developed a fully responsive layout for all screen sizes and devices.

Jenata Dnes is one of the most famous magazines in Bulgaria, with loyal audience. That is why we have decided to show the latest issue cover on the most viewable position in the header. Moreover, we have provided a rich archive with all published issues from 1945 till now.

The editors have the ability to show up to three featured articles on the home page depending on the feed dynamics, the materials’ importance and other magazine’s specifics.

We have paid special attention to the articles with beautiful galleries, representing them with a big beautiful image right before the footer. Furthermore, this image draws the reader’s attention and keeps it for a little longer on the website just before reaching “the end”.

When opened the gallery appears in full screen on black background on which the good photography can stand out and is easy to share.

The articles have a couple of different layouts depending on the images that are used. The authors can choose between an articles with large or small horizontal or vertical image or even without one.

We have used the most comfortable easy-to-read layout for the articles. The more narrow text column, the good typography and the white space around it build a better and easier reading experience. When user reaches the end of the text, the website naturally offers them further related materials to capture their interest even more.

On the bottom of the website we have placed a well defined black divider to distinguish the footer from the main content and to offer to the loyal readers the opportunity to subscribe for the Jenatadnes.com newsletter.

Last but not least, we have developed a pretty 404 page, which offers to the lost users an option to navigate to another part of the website.

As a final result we achieved double increase in the unique website visits, even higher increase in the impressions and the average time spent on the website. This, of course, naturally has led to higher clients' satisfaction.