Designing a Student Newsroom for the Digital Age
The Loyola Phoenix has been Loyola University Chicago's independent student newspaper for over a century — and as its sole Web & App Developer, I've been responsible for the digital experience that now serves over 30,000 monthly readers. My role wasn't to redesign from scratch but to make meaningful additions that elevated what was already there: studying how established publications like The New York Times structure their digital experience and applying those principles wherever I could within a WordPress and Elementor build. The goal was a site that felt functional, inclusive, and worth coming back to.
The Features That Made the Difference
Every addition started with a real need. The navigation got dropdown menus for direct access to subsections, section pages got unique grid layouts so Opinion, Sports, and Arts each carry their own visual identity, and embedded content — Spotify players, an interactive PuzzleMe crossword — gave readers reasons to stay beyond the article. One of the most intentional additions was the "Leer en Español" button, surfacing Spanish-language content directly on English articles. At a Jesuit university with a diverse student body, making bilingual journalism visible wasn't just a design decision — it was an editorial one.
But features are only part of it. The Phoenix is a live publication with real editors, real deadlines, and real readers, and my role has always reflected that. I own the site end-to-end: scoping and shipping new features, fielding requests from the editorial team, troubleshooting whatever breaks on a Tuesday night before a story goes live, and monitoring analytics to understand how readers actually move through the site. The work that doesn't make a portfolio slide — the quick fixes, the judgment calls, the institutional knowledge built over time — is just as much the job.
