Loomio
Tue 20 Oct 2020 12:32AM

Journal website - update and next steps/post ideas!

J John Public Seen by 12

Hi all,

I've done some research on the cost and options for developing our new journal website. Here are my brief updates:

-We need to decide what subpages the site will have. This will determine the cost more than anything else.

-So, just to get a feel for pricing, I told two potential developers that it would be four pages: the homepage, which will be like a blog or journal page; a press/media page; a calendar of events; and an "About" page. (This was just my example to give them.) The pricing is wildly different if we go to a local developer or if we go to essentially an outsourcing company based abroad. The estimate for here was $2,500; the estimate for abroad was $350.

-My experience with developers is, they will happily walk us through the design process. We can give them images we want to include (maybe some of the pamphlet graphics?) and tell them our general preferred color scheme and "feel" for the site and they will take it from there.

-Here are a few links to peruse to see different templates available to us. Might be good for us each to pick two or three we like and compare notes:

Good collection showing Wordpress themes:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/showcase/best-wordpress-themes/

Wordpress themes designed to showcase journals:

https://wordpress.com/themes/filter/journal

Interestingly, Squarespace is now deemphasizing templates entirely. Here are some examples of Squarespace-designed websites:

https://www.designbombs.com/squarespace-sites/

I think it would also be good for us to find websites of journals that we think look good and could point our developer to. A lot of us know ROAR, and they are essentially a journal:

https://roarmag.org/

Current Affairs has a nice design:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/

Post other suggestions below! Also - need to decide on a website title, and a url!

R

Rehj Tue 20 Oct 2020 2:34AM

I really like the sites you've posted, especially Current Affairs.

In thinking about content, I was thinking about a two-stage plan: We could start with a very simple and free cheap site while planning for a more complex one.

The goal of the simple site would be to establish a publishing cadence, e.g., 1 piece published at the same time every week, and just have, say, a solid-color background showcasing one informatively-captioned picture of anarchism in action and one article.

The articles would run the gamut, e.g., opinion pieces, reports on something that happened that week, book reviews, responses to recent articles, discussion of something that's upcoming the following week, etc. If we wanted to, some weeks we could branch out to have a video instead.

For photographs, we can solicit ones from the group, and I might be able to get my in-house photographer to help me get some good photos.

That would give us the opportunity to get some experience, establish a publishing routine, and build up our content so that when we are ready to go a bit more complex (something more like the Roar or Current Affairs websites that look very appealing), we already have a good archive of content -- it would likely not all have retained its relevance (e.g., the discussions of things that are going to happen), but much of it probably would (opinions, book reviews, etc) -- that people can browse through.

J

John Tue 20 Oct 2020 2:47AM

Love that idea. We would still need to budget for a URL, SSL certificate, and Squarespace or Wordpress account, but it would be pretty cheap. And pick a template and a url, as well as the subpages. Once we have all that we could let someone (volunteers??) go to town and make a simple Squarespace site.

R

Rehj Tue 20 Oct 2020 2:53AM

haha, good points. I was just assuming we'd sign up for a free wordpress account and just have the pluckiest free website around! :D