femail.co.uk was the pre-cursor to the Daily Mail website that was launched three years later.
It reproduced much of the copy from the Daily Mail newspaper as well as having original content produced from its own editorial team.
The site was actually itself a replacement for an earlier site, the Flash-only experiment Charlotte Street. The main success of this site was its extremely popular message board, at a time when online forums didn’t have the mainstream reach they do today. Although the site needed to be replaced with a broader website (and not requiring Flash), the message board was carried over with the same branding it had originally, and for several years continued, even once femail.co.uk became the Daily Mail.
The site was very large, covering UK and international news as well as health, entertainment, fashion, beauty and other topics. There were substantial picture galleries, competitions, promotions, tv listings, shopping services and various other partner deals throughout its life.
I was responsible for all elements of the design and branding of the site, and led a small team of designers for the 9-month period of its development.