Bloomberg Politics

Mapping the Daily Show Cycle

We decided to leverage elements of the design system to create completely integrated ad experiences for Bloomberg’s high-profile advertisers like BP and Goldman Sachs. Relying heavily on motion and animation-based interactions, we collaborated with Bloomberg on a new toolkit of custom and unobtrusive ad integrations that they could expand on over time.

Cross-Media Storytelling

The goal was to build a politics site for the user of the future.

The company hired heavyweight political journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann to set the tone for the new media property, which would also serve as the launching pad for what would be the new television show, With All Due Respect.

Establishing the content, editorial team, and the site all happened in tandem. Decisions in one area informed decisions in another, and vice versa. Acting as one unit, our teams worked side-by-side for six weeks to build the entire site from scratch.

A Visual System Built to Scale Across Verticals

Because the site would be the first in a series of vertical-specific launches spanning business to luxury news, the team needed to ensure that the systematic elements of the visual language would be able to traverse any site in the ecosystem.

The design had to build upon and enhance the visual system established by Bloomberg Businessweek, one of the company’s flagship properties.

Lastly, as the politics unit was a new entity in the company, the launch day site experience would need to scale over time as the editorial team built out its library of content and increased the frequency and volume of content they produced.

Flexible Story Packaging Across Homepage and Articles

One unique aspect of political coverage is the prevalence of longer-term story arcs and threaded stories. We took great care to ensure flexibility on both the homepage and article pages to allow reporters to package up content in ways that would be useful to readers. On the article page, for instance, we accounted for all types of content formats—from long-form pieces, to feature stories, to in-depth reporting, to quick news bites.

Mapping the Daily Show Cycle Into the Site Experience

As a modern publisher with a history in television, Bloomberg placed a heavy emphasis on cross-platform storytelling. We worked together to map the daily programming cycle of With All Due Respect into the content experience, with summaries and catch-ups in the morning, and pre-show builds in the afternoon. Additionally, users would be able to follow the show live on the site every day at 5pm. The flexible and modular system we created empowered the editorial team to map out their storytelling and daily news coverage around the show’s linear programming cycle.

The morning after launch, the new Bloomberg Politics awoke to acclaim from pundits, readers and competitors.

Praised for its “bold” and “excellent” site design that was “beautifully Bloomberg,” and recognized for its addicting and “seamless” reading experience, the new site immediately drew attention in media, business and political circles.