A group of non-journalism students have redesigned and relaunched Redbrick, the University of Birmingham's award-winning student newspaper and website.
Geography student and digital editor of Redbrick Chris Hutchinson and Josh Holder, the site's music editor and engineering student, have dedicated the last three months to building the responsive site, which resizes to fit the size of the mobile, tablet or desktop screen it is viewed on.
The redesign follows the launch of a web app released in May, which was also built by Hutchinson.
The new site went live today, the first day of freshers' week. "It's pretty much consumed our summer," Hutchinson told Journalism.co.uk.
The University of Birmingham does not have a journalism department and therefore relies on the efforts of students from a range of backgrounds, all of whom provided input into the features included in the relaunched site.
It was designed with both the writers and readers at the centre of the user experience, Hutchinson explained.
The site uses WordPress as it is the "easiest system to use" when relying on contributions from a range of students, with the front end built by Hutchinson and Holder "entirely from the ground up".
Features include integrated liveblogs and social media updates. At the time of writing the homepage was encouraging debate around the #HelloBrum hashtag, a campus-wide initiative, and the music section has come up with #FreshersSong, which encourages interaction around "the most hyped/overplayed song" of freshers' week.
As digital editor, Hutchinson considers the content presented on the homepage. "It's not just about personalisaton," Hutchinson said, "It's important to tell students what they need to know as well as what they want to know."
The print edition of Redbrick is also getting a makeover. The first edition of the new-look newspaper will be published on 5 October.
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