Mirror.co.uk relaunches website with &&& Creative

The new design launched at 6.15am this morning but was taken down shortly afterwards due to technical isses. The Mirror itself reports, ‘A brilliant new-look Mirror website was launched early this morning… and then, as is traditional in digital publishing, promptly crashed.’

It is hoped the new site will relaunch later today.

Matt Kelly, publisher of Mirror Group Digital, says the redesign is being implemented ‘to better capture what we’re about – it’s direct, vigorous and has great use of photography, as well as the opportunity to use clever tabloid headlines.

‘It also provides better exposure for our fantastic writers.’

He adds, ‘Although this is a big relaunch, we’ve been incrementally changing the product over the last few years and we felt like a complete refresh was long overdue.’

The new design uses the Daily Mirror’s typeface, a bespoke typeface called Mirror, which is based on Agenda, and also has ‘a couple of ties’ to the print paper, according to Kelly, including a triangle device used to point into images.

Speaking of &&&’s involvement in the project, Kelly says, ‘We’ve got a great in-house team of designers, but at the time of relaunch you need a different skillset. An external group can propose concepts without losing sight of what you’re about. &&& also did some brilliant work on the website for Sabotage Times.’

Simon Brown, creative director at &&&, says, ‘The Mirror brand is so big that you can’t help but have a nod to it design-wise. We’ve taken hints from its heritage and brought them online. You’ll see for, example, that the logotype has been redrawn so that it sits pixel-perfect on the site.’