Reimagined the digital future of Hia, a leading fashion magazine in the Middle East and North Africa for empowered women.
The big challenge
Ostmodern was asked by SRMG to design the future of a website for its fashion brand, Hia: A publication for empowered women in the Middle East and North Africa.
Hia has a long-standing position as the authority on all things fashion and lifestyle. The high-end image of the traditional magazine had to be preserved while engaging audiences with its new digital assets.
Delivering innovative shopping solutions, social integrations and attracting the Gen-Zs was key to retaining its position as a market leader. This would allow Hia to position itself where it can leverage subscriptions and monetisation strategies.
The approach
Opportunities were explored around content discovery, structure, multichannel experiences, storytelling and onward journeys. We looked into ways to monetise the user experience through e-commerce journeys, advertising and sponsorships and loyalty. Concept findings were tested and iterated, ready for the define and production phase.
The digital product provided to its readers was carefully curated with meaningful content steeping in authenticity. Ultimately delivering a visually striking experience.
I audited the UX flows with weekly client sign off meetings. Then I began to focus on the UI deliverables, iterating where necessary from any client feedback.
How did it look?
The visual direction was to create a calm and sophisticated backdrop for the content to sit alongside. A new foundational digital design system was carefully created, allowing the high-end digital content to work against a refined muted palette of graphite, gold and taupe. Both arabic and english versions were designed for the ultimate digital experience.
A clear tokenised design system was created as the layouts were designed and signed off by the client each week.
The outcome
A leading experience in the fashion world that engages readers with a range of quality content and experiences. All the while leveraging strategic monetisation models through tiered subscriptions.
Article screen
Underneath the article hero component are product list cards where you are given the option to buy, share, save or style match.
When the style match CTA is selected, a modal reveals co-ordinated collections around that particular garment. This then inspires the user to view and potentially purchase further products creating extra revenue to the site.
Fashion screen
Filter dropdowns for desktop and modals for mobile help the user search for specific fashion collections via season, city, year or brand.
The visual layout of the selected fashion image for mobile considers the bottom browser navigation for the most user friendly experience.
Role
Design Direction
UI Designer
Prototyping
