Updated on: June 14, 2023
13+ Best Journalist Websites Examples
By Maria Castillo
Table of Contents
Do you need a place to publish your reports as an independent journalist? Today's journalistic websites' diversity, extraordinary style, and creativity have impressed us.
Some real gems can inspire you to raise the quality standard of your work, look for new approaches, or simply follow today’s trends.
To inspire you with innovative web design concepts, this article offers 14 outstanding examples of excellent journalistic websites where some modern ideas will help you analyze the components of your website more clearly.
URL: https://www.tarapixley.com/
Tara Pixley is a freelance photojournalist and documentary filmmaker specializing in editorial portraiture, reportage, and dance pictures.
The website for Tara Pixley's has a clean and attractive layout. It employs a vertical sticky menu that displays different labels horizontally, allowing users to access the navigation options easily and preventing them from having to scroll up to find the main menu. Its content is presented in high-quality photographs in two columns with plenty of white space, improving visual clarity.
Additionally, when hovering over the images, these are highlighted in pink with the option to enlarge them and get a slideshow gallery. All these elements contribute to creating a well-organized and professional design that highlights the content and enhances the reader's experience.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: Format
URL: https://michielzonneveld.nl/
Michiel Zonnevel is a Dutch journalist who uses a simple web design to expose his work. Its header has only a few critical tags with a search bar that facilitates the exploration within the site. The home screen is dark, allowing his exposed article to be the center of attention.
Scrolling down, visitors will find text in legible font and images to keep the audience interested and engaged with the content. Also, in the end, users can subscribe to the newsletter using email, which can encourage user loyalty.
These elements help convey the author's personality and style on the website and provide a great user experience.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: WordPress
URL: https://www.danawoodwriter.com/
Dana Wood is a freelance writer whose website showcases her work with a clean and light touch. The colors used on the site are related to the coastal environment, making her visitors feel relaxed when entering and browsing. In the header, there are key user options that make navigation easy.
The home screen displays the logos of the brands with which it has collaborated, generating trust and credibility among visitors.
In addition, it has a notorious hyperlink to its showcase session, which is presented in a horizontal scroll, making it attractive and generating greater engagement for time spent on the web.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: Squarespace
Zina Kumok has more than five years of experience as a freelance writer. She writes content regularly for major financial brands and provides financial coaching.
Her website showcases her simplicity and friendliness through a simple sticky menu interface. On its home screen, it only employs a full-screen photo of herself with a short description.
The site has a "See my portfolio here" CTA button and a "Contact me" button at strategic points to improve navigation and user experience. There is also a testimonial session with legible font and high-quality photos displaying statements from her bosses and clients, as well as a great piece of writing from her describing her strengths and weaknesses working as a social proof that supports the journalist's reputation.
All of the above elements generate credibility and confidence for users who may be motivated to use her services.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: Squarespace
URL: https://www.kristenbateman.com/
Kristen Bateman is a writer, editor, and creative consultant with a minimalist yet entertaining website. This site employs a vertical drop-down menu compatible with all screens with a few essential options, which reduces space and offers compatibility with all electronic devices.
For its content, only hyperlinks are used to take the user to the respective sessions of the site, which are presented in small images placed in a grid allowing easy and fast exploration.
Additionally, it has hyperlinks to its social networks that are permanently located on the lower right side of the website.
All the above elements allow for precise and straightforward navigation, meaning users feel comfortable visiting the website.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: Format
URL: https://www.alicedriver.com/
Alice Driver is a writer from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. Her website employs a minimalist design using lots of white space to help users focus on her content.
Their home menu has only a header with categories for easy navigation and an image that represents their work using a biography for their caption. It also uses more text than images, allowing you to provide more accurate and detailed information.
Additionally, her contact information and location are shared, allowing visitors to feel secure knowing there is an easy way to contact the author if any questions or problems occur.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: Format
URL: https://plumwoodmountain.com/
This website has a stunning, entertaining, and elegant design. It has a drop-down menu that helps not to saturate the interface and makes navigation easier for visitors.
It also employs a color palette of earth tones throughout the site, conveying a sense of seriousness and reliability. A parallax effect is used on the home screen to give a sense of immersion. Several elegant fonts are used, ranging from italic to bold.
And there are also a variety of effects, such as underlining when the user moves the pointer over the text and photographs that enlarge smoothly when hovering over them.
All these elements help to generate a sense of comfort and offer an innovative user experience to attract a new audience.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: WordPress
URL: http://theskateboardersjournal.com/
The international skateboarding community regards the Skateboarder's Journal as one of the world's best publications.
This website welcomes its visitors with a pop-up window for subscribing to its newsletter that allows users to receive exclusive access, such as special reports or discounts on events related to journalism. It has an adapted menu on all screens with a search bar and shopping cart facilitating the search and purchase process.
Its website also employs multiple CTA buttons, inviting users to purchase products effectively. In its interface, it uses dark and white tones, giving it a modern and elegant look; additionally, it uses a slideshow on the home screen, which manages to show the urban style and journalism on which it focuses.
High-quality photography and eye-catching headlines in bold or sustained capital letters are used to capture visitors' attention.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: WordPress
URL: https://onemanandhisblog.com/
This is Adam Tinworth's blog about journalism, digital media, and internet culture. His website is simple and user-friendly, with a menu for all screen sizes. It employs a mega menu that allows highlighting news, articles, or relevant sections helping visitors to access the content quickly.
By scrolling down, you can see various images and photographs that help the user focus on specific topics, and to avoid oversaturating with information, the author decided to activate the option to see more that redirect to the specific article.
It also promotes its news through email by offering multiple options through the site to subscribe to the newsletter of its website.
Additionally, it offers to create an account within the site that allows users to select topics of interest, receive personalized recommendations, save favorite content, or set notifications according to their individual needs and preferences.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: Ghost
URL: https://clairemiller.net/
This is a Claire Miller blog who is an investigative data journalist working across national and regional newspapers in the UK.
Her website uses a clean, simple, and unconventional interface. On its home screen, information is shared through phrases from her blog, and although it lacks a menu at the bottom of the home screen, tags that the author considers essential are shared.
By scrolling down, visitors will find a lot of text that alternates with different styles in its typography, photographs, and visual elements to avoid showing a boring content. To return to the top of the page, there is a button at the bottom right to maintain quick navigation.
Additionally, there is a box where users can subscribe to the newsletter and thus maintain a close relationship with them.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: WordPress
URL: https://maryhamilton.co.uk/
This website employs a relatively simple and easy-to-use design. It has a sticky vertical menu that is not only unusual but also has a short description of each category, offering its visitors a unique attention.
Additionally, in this part, it also shares its social networks, tags and comments. It uses much more text than pictures, offering detailed and accurate information.
It also makes use of a white background that works for readers to focus on the content and engage with the information in its articles. For each post it offers the possibility for visitors to share it directly to different social networks.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: WordPress
URL: https://zombiejournalism.com/
This is a blog from Mandy Jenkins, a journalist, researcher, and occasional teacher who's learned how to lead on "the business side" and build great products. Her website has a simple, user-friendly look and feel.
It employs a horizontal menu with drop-down options for neat and efficient navigation. An image representing her site is shown to her visitors in its header.
Although it uses much more text than images, it is presented in an organized way because of the readable font and the fact that the site has a search bar and an archive of its publications allowing the visitor to explore much more in-depth in a simple way.
Additionally, a box is added where users can subscribe to the newsletter and follow the blog's social networks, expanding its audience and keeping loyal users.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: WordPress
Winer's pioneering weblog, Scripting News, takes its name from this initial interest. His website has a simple, user-friendly design.
It employs a header with a photograph in the background that conveys the writer's personality and a phrase that distinguishes his blog.
Below these are four tabs that facilitate navigation within the site. Its content is relatively informal, using a lot of text and detailed information combined with one or another small visual element or emoji.
It also uses infinite vertical scrolling to provide a more fluid and uninterrupted user experience.
Additionally, it has a white that makes visitors focus on its content without distractions.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: Custom
URL: https://www.christophtrappe.com/
This website has stories that help you find customers and connect with donors, advocates, and others. It has a simple, easy-to-use, and professional interface. The header has a horizontal menu with hierarchical drop-down options to keep the site organized.
And a high-quality, screen-wide photo that shows the writer so that your visitors know what he/she looks like.
A newsletter subscription box is used to help maintain a closer relationship with its audience.
A CTA button inviting users to purchase services is placed at the top of the site in a catchy way.
The site also invites visitors to follow it across all its social media platforms. All these elements make its audience grow within the website and make its services gain more recognition and reliability.
Notes to take from this website:
Builder used: WordPress
Now is the time to apply everything you've learned into practice, activate your capacity for web design, and build the best possible journalist website to display your incredible talent and distinctive style.
So continue along and showcase your talents to the world.
However, don't forget to stay updated on the latest web design styles and implement them.
We hope you won't be scared to use the websites mentioned above as a source of inspiration.