Website redesign shows off GJR in new light.

Jarvis, John

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Call it online remodeling.

If visitors to Gateway Journalism Review's website, gatewayjr.org, have been paying attention in the past couple of months, they have noticed that someone has been hard at work giving the website an updated look and feel since its launch in 2010.

Sharon Wittke, GJR's associate managing editor, put her online expertise to work in sprucing up GJR's homepage.

Question: What was the reason behind the change?

Answer: The main reason was to create a more visually compelling site and to be able to feature artwork by GJR's talented illustrator, Steve Edwards, as well as photographs that accompany printed articles.

Q: How hard was it to do?

A: Planning a website is usually the most difficult part. Since we already had our content, the challenge was in finding a theme for the website that was best suited to the content.

Q: Did you have any experience with a website redesign before this?

A: I helped redesign the website for Southern Illinois University-Carbondale's School of Journalism and its "South of 64" program.

Q: Did you have any help implementing the redesign?

A. Fellow GJR staffers J.P. Rhea and Christian Holt created the concept for the new header, which features the current print copy of the journal. This serves to better unite the print edition with the website.

Q: Have you added any features to the website? What are they?

A: The only new feature I added was the tab that allows readers to send in corrections. Basically, I worked with what was already established and just moved it around a bit.

Q: Are you done with making changes to the website, or is this just the first step?

A: I believe GJR is planning on doing a series of videotaped interviews about current issues facing journalists, which will be added to the website.