fastcompany.com - At Bustle's Chelsea office in Manhattan, the two women at the heart of the website's overhaul—creative director Isla Murray and senior engineer Zahra Jabini—are sitting together in the design room. Around them, the walls are covered in inspiration boards filled with images from recent photo shoots for the online publication. Women wearing colorfully patterned dresses seem to float in a sea of bright pinks, teals, oranges, and yellows. Such scenes of warmth, optimism, and fun have been channeled into Bustle's brand-new look, which is being revealed today.
The site was first developed three and a half years ago and had a functional aesthetic much like Medium or Tumblr that allowed you to scroll through blocks of clickable images that would take you to an article. The background was white and minimalistic. "There wasn't that much personality," Murray says. "As we've grown, developing our editorial voice and our social voice, and really come into our own, we've been screaming for a way to visually express that."