Monocle is a global publication that covers international affairs, business, culture and design. The print version of the magazine is published 10 times a year. Monocle realized that they could extend the content they provided and the relationship they had with their audience by having an online presence, with more up-to-date news, articles and information.
EPiServer CMS chosen for site
Digital agency Rufus Leonard began the project by providing consultancy for Monocle regarding the CMS for the site. The solution selected was
EPiServer CMS, in which Rufus Leonard had extensive experience and expertise. The designs were taken and created as HTML templates, before being translated into the CMS. Back-end workflows were created with Monocle to ensure ongoing editorial processes and to support the initial content population.
Rich media assets
The strength of the site is based on how the build phase was approached and the output that resulted from it. Monocle leverages the EPiServer content management framework to dynamically bring together HTML-based content, CSS, JavaScript and rich media assets with a configurable cache to ensure that page load times are optimized for the end-user's.
The EPiServer back-end administration tools make it possible for site administrators to add and maintain content with a minimum of technical expertise; textual content can be maintained either via in-page editing or using a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor that functions similarly to familiar products like Microsoft Word. Digital assets - such as images and video content - are managed via a structured asset library that allows items to be tagged and categorised as appropriate.
The EPiServer CMS has made it possible to maximize reuse of component code, helping to produce a greater degree of depth in available content than would typically be available to casual browsers of a magazine website.
Prestigious D&AD award
Since the launch of the website Rufus Leonard has continued to manage the hosting for the site and has worked with Monocle to develop the site further, adding e-commerce functionality.In addition user journeys have been revised with subscribers being allowed to access specific content that is hidden from general users. In June 2008 the site won the prestigious D&AD award in the category of Newspaper and Magazine design/print with online.