Designing Change
Letter from the Head of Design
By Jennifer Crakow
I’ve followed The Battleground since its inception in 2019.
At that time, the website, newly launched, was still in its early stages. It was very basic, more like a personal blog from the 2000s than a media serving a unique international audience of academics, artists, and parliamentarians.
In 2021, I was offered the job of reinventing the site and leading design efforts for all Battleground media moving forward.
I jumped at the opportunity. Having worked as an interaction and design director in technology for over twenty-five years, I knew exactly what to do. I brought a systematic process and approach to The Battleground’s design that hadn’t existed before.
I re-architected the site to showcase and highlight both The Battleground’s content and its products, including books, photographs, and field recording albums.
Along with Philippe Nicolas, our veteran visual designer and illustrator (The New York Times, Agence France-Presse and Wired have been among his clients), we shaped the experience that exists today. That is to say, we focused on placing the visual emphasis on content above all else.
With this newfound focus, we could put The Battleground’s groundbreaking publications in the foreground, whilst leaving the utilitarian aspects of the website to the background. This enables an effortless experience of our articles, images and podcasts.
Though I had a lot of leeway in the redesign, it wasn’t easy. I was accustomed to working collaboratively with large design and development teams to create innovative solutions for media such as the BBC and Yahoo!, as well as tech clients like Samsung.
While big project teams have disappeared into the past, Philippe and I worked tirelessly to bring the site to where it is today. It’s still not perfect, not by a long shot, but it’s much more fitting than its previous instantiation.
The Battleground has been repeatedly approached to join next-level publishing platform groups, which is precisely the sort of attention I hoped our redesign would draw. We’re extremely gratified by the attention.
Perfection is a fool’s errand. It’s fleeting and never final, much like digital design. Things continue to evolve and change constantly. Working in this uncertainty is part of the job's appeal. We have a solid design system and base now to work off of, whatever comes our way.
Enter Battleground Allies, a new approach to monetising our content to enable us to both survive and thrive in these dark times.
Being an independent media is tough and subject to a lot more headwinds than ever before. So, we ask for your help. Please subscribe and help us navigate this turbulence. If you can’t, that’s okay too. You’re still part of The Battleground family.
My Battleground experience has been both fulfilling and challenging. Thanks to you, we’re making strides promoting cosmopolitanism and speaking truth to power. Let’s keep up the good fight, together.
Photograph courtesy of Joel Schalit. All rights reserved.