Following a redesign of the magazine last September, the New Yorker has today unveiled a new look for its website. NewYorker.com is now easier to read on smartphones, desktops, and tablets.
It's the the New Yorker--publisher of 13,000-word book reviews and five-part stories on wheat--so don't expect a radical upheaval of the visual identity. However, NewYorker.com has gained a responsive design that makes it easier to read in the mobile age, while maintaining its iconic look. Unlike the old NewYorker.com, the new design features a lot of white space, deemphasizes on navigation elements like sidebars and menus, and has a portal-like homepage that encourages browsing.
The bigger changes to the New Yorker, though, relate to access. The New Yorker has spent the better part of a decade grudgingly resisting the always-on content demands of the web, releasing only some of the magazine's content to web readers. But times change. The New Yorker is not only pledging more online content, including new stories and daily columns, but also full digital access to the magazine's content this summer, for print subscribers and non-subscribers alike. At the end of the summer, the New Yorker will begin charging non-subscribers for magazine articles on a metered basis, a la New York Times (and, like the New York Times, a certain number of articles will be free to these users each month). Print subscribers will still have access to everything.
You can read more about the New Yorker's redesign here.