Words cannot express how long I’ve waited to write that headline! Over the past year we have been working hard to create a new digital platform that best displays all of our original, queer-first storytelling that millions of you consume each month. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here and we can’t wait for you to take a look around.
We put user experience at the forefront of this change, creating a new GAY TIMES homepage that allows us greater control over surfacing and curating the content you want to read. We have new trending tags at the top of the page so you can discover content within topics that we know you enjoy. And our most popular list on the side of the page allows you to see the most-read articles on GAYTIMES.co.uk daily. We have brought this all together to turn gaytimes.co.uk into a destination hub. Like many websites, most of you discover our editorial through social media or Google searches, but with this new website we want to become the place you check each day for the very best queer content.
With that in mind, we have also recreated how every article looks to provide a better reading experience. When you now click on our long-read features, the article has been designed to feel more editorial. There are bigger images, new headline and subheading design, clearer text and little details to give the digital article a magazine touch. For our new smaller articles we have designed them so you can jump straight into the news report, knowing that big headlines and header images would only obstruct what we’d consider content people would want to consume more quickly and on the go. We also have plenty of clever tech working away under the hood to recommend related articles too.
As most of you visit us using your smartphones, you’ll have noticed a much simpler, cleaner and eye-pleasing design for our mobile site. Edge-to-edge imagery and plenty of space for the content to breathe makes our renovated mobile experience much more enjoyable.
Elsewhere on the homepage we have easy access to buy the latest issues of GAY TIMES Magazine, we have our popular Queer & Now playlist on Apple Music which includes the best new tracks by LGBTQ+ artists, and we have access to our favourite picks where you’ll find some of the exciting campaigns we are currently running.
With a fast-growing online and social audience, this new era for GAYTIMES.co.uk has come at just the right time. We are a truly global LGBTQ+ media brand with readers consuming our content across all continents. As part of this new look, you can also expect bigger online exclusives, more voices, and deeper coverage of the content you love.
It’s been a challenging year for us all, but the media publishing industry in particular has been hard hit. Despite all of this we’ve been committed to pushing the GAY TIMES brand into a new era, knowing that independent queer journalism and supporting LGBTQ+ talent and organisations is more vital now than ever before.
This is the first phase of some big changes you’ll see coming from GAY TIMES in the coming months. With our membership program GAYTIMES+ set to launch soon, as well as some innovative campaigns to come later in the year, the team here have been busy laying the foundation for the next chapter in our legacy as Europe’s longest-running LGBTQ+ media brand.
With that in mind, August will see the launch of a completely reimagined GAY TIMES Magazine as we publish the first of our new quarterly title edition. The product will look and feel very different from anything we’ve produced before and we’re very excited to show it to you soon. In the meantime, enjoy the brand new gaytimes.co.uk and, as always, thank you for your continued and loyal support.
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