Toronto Life Magazine

Toronto Life is the city’s preeminent publication for food, real estate and cultural news. I worked as Director of UX and Digital Creative Director at its parent company, St. Joseph Media from 2014-2017 and returned in 2021 to help them redesign the site.

2021 Homepage Redesign

I joined SJM in 2021 to rethink the homepage and article templates to bring them more inline with the graphic design of the magazine and enhance curation opportunities for editors. I redesigned the grid, and developed a system for modular content blocks to enable editors to feature packages by content category.

Top story module with vertical feature

Top story module with horizontal feature

Top story module 'packaged'

Standard topic based module

Between the first redesign and 2017 we made several upgrades to the site. These were often done in sprints, and sometimes as larger projects:

  • Added an infinite scroll to the homepage of Toronto Life, opening up more entry points for users and sponsored content opportunities for advertisers.
  • Designed and built long-read templates for special packages like Best Restaurants and featured stories.
  • Redesigned the header and 'drawer' navigation to accommodate footer information which wouldn't be reached.
  • Designed and built special pillar or topic landing pages for in depth explorations of the city, like 'Best of' And 'Neighbourhoods Rankings'.

Toronto Life Homepage 2016

Toronto Life homepage on Mobile

Toronto Life Article

Toronto Life Article continued

Toronto Life Article Mobile

Full screen topper for Featured Articles

Split screen topper for Featured Articles

Mobile / Detailed navigation

Best of Everything

Best of Everything Topic page

Pillar page with large feature

Full screen door for special sections

Special sections article page

Special sections article page

I Worked On

  • Product strategy & planning
  • Information architecture & wireframes
  • Visual design, & design system
  • Design direction of the website

The Team