Block Notes, "Appunti di Contemporaneità", is an independent Italian online magazine of analysis and commentary: Italy, Europe, the world, politics, the environment, rights, wars and culture. I designed and built its website from scratch, for a small newsroom with several authors and regular columns.
The brief
A magazine that reads like a magazine, not like a blog template. Several contributors sign their pieces, some series come back every week, and some pieces are podcasts or video rather than text. The newsroom needed to publish all of it on its own, without a developer in the loop.
My role
Design and build, end to end: layout and typography, a custom WordPress theme, the content structure, the domain, certificate and newsroom email, and a private preview so the editor could review the design before anything went public.
A front page with an editor's hierarchy
The masthead and the date line set the tone, as in print. Below it, three columns with clear roles: the latest articles on the left, the lead story in the middle, the columns on the right. Each item shows its section, its column and whether it's a podcast or a video, so readers know what they're opening before they click.
The front page: latest, lead story, columns.
Built around how a newsroom publishes
Sections (Italy, Europe, World, Politics, Environment, Rights, Wars, Culture) are the main navigation, each with its own page.
Columns are a separate taxonomy, so a weekly series like Living in America or AntiTesi has its own page, description and archive, across any section.
Bylines: an article can be signed by its author or by "Redazione", without exposing WordPress user accounts to readers.
Podcasts and video are marked in every list, not only inside the article.
Columns as a taxonomy, each with its own page.
A section page.
Reading comes first
A serif for headlines and text, a sans for labels, generous line length and spacing, and nothing between the headline and the article except the byline and the date.
An article page.
On the phone
The section bar scrolls sideways under the masthead, columns open as a list, and the lead story keeps its image and byline.
Front page, article and columns menu on a phone.
How we worked
Drafts first, behind a password, so the editor could react to real pages instead of mockups. Once the direction was approved, the theme went live behind a "coming soon" page with a preview key, the editor loaded the first articles, and the site opened. The theme is versioned, so changes are small, reviewable and easy to roll back.
Status
Live at blocknotes.info, published by the newsroom every week. No traffic figures are claimed here. Screenshots are from the live site.
0 likes · 0 views · Nov 13, 2026
Independent Italian online magazine: I designed and built its WordPress site with a custom theme for sections, signed columns, podcasts and video.
