A few months ago, I found myself pawing through a Decatur storage unit with Phil Bolton, Global Atlanta’s founder, in search of physical archives and ephemera from our more than 30 years as a news outlet.
Amid the floppy disks and binders full of old copies of GlobalFax, our original digital/physical hybrid news service, it became evident that even after this long, there is nothing new under the sun.
Global Atlanta in many ways provides the same journalistic service to the community that it did then: showing how Atlanta is connected to the world by reporting actionable news, curating a calendar of international events and helping our advertisers connect with globally minded people and companies across Georgia.
I take this as a testimony of Phil’s vision, even then, of a publication that embraces technology as means of efficient content delivery, while seeing its success tied to the creation of value for Global Atlantans — those who by their connectivity, cultural fluency and commitment to engagement drive this city’s international aspirations forward.
Interestingly, many of the expansion ideas we still harbor were already on the agenda (and even present on the first iteration of GlobalAtlanta.com) long before the tools to carry them out really existed.
As we embarked on a refresh of our visual identity and a redesign of our website last year, these principles guided us, and Phil’s durable vision of service remained as solid as ever.
But as we sought to continue in his spirit of innovation, the question became how to respect tradition while embracing technology that enables us to do go beyond simply telling the reader what’s happening. Phil always prioritized what he called “relationship reporting,” but we wanted to lean further into the idea that journalists can both inform and engage.
Now, in exciting new ways, we can help readers navigate the incumbent complexity of global business by convening experts, fostering relationships and lending the institutional knowledge (and unrivaled archive) that comes with 30 years of in-depth reporting on this community.
Visual Design for an Updated Vision
So how does all this translate into what we’re revealing today? We’re updating our visual design to match our renewed vision, one that puts the reader at the center of what we do.
That should translate to better readability and easier navigation, especially on mobile devices, as well as in our many newsletters, which begin sending in refreshed forms this evening.
At the core, these changes are about elevating our aesthetic while helping you get the the information you need as quickly and conveniently as possible, knowing that we will be a primary source of news and leads for some, while for others, we may simply be supplemental resource or occasional networking tool.
Here are five things you might notice while perusing the new site:
Navigation
Our refreshed navigation bar reflects the geographic areas and topics that we find ourselves covering on a regular basis and for which we have enough content to justify what we call Channels, including monthly email newsletters. We’ll be adding more as we go. Interested in a certain country? Let us know, or use the search function to uncover stories based on country, region, topic or post type (events or articles) in archives that date back to 1993.
Ads
Global Atlanta has never played the “eyeballs” game and won’t start now. Our model is about serving smart, engaged readers well. As such, you’ll notice that we’re keeping a light advertising touch, focusing on providing fewer but more prominent ad zones to best highlight our partners.
Content Clarity
We’ve updated our back end to a content management system shared by 200 news organizations guided by principles of objectivity and transparency. Any sponsored or paid content is clearly labeled, and we remain committed to delivering useful, accurate and actionable information, even in our advertising.
Personal Touches
You’ll now see more faces on Global Atlanta as we add author boxes for our staff and guest commentary writers, enabling you to better connect with the people behind the content. Eventually, we aim to reintroduce article comments for a select group of pre-approved readers, driving productive discussions around international issues on our site.
Community Events
We’re now spotlighting the community organizations that make up our curated international calendar on our homepage, showcasing their logos and brands in a more prominent way to reflect the diversity of groups that make Atlanta a globally engaged city.
On the branding side, we’ve chosen to update the Global Atlanta you know, hopefully without causing too much disorientation.
We strove to retain the sophistication of our previous logo, which served us well for 10 years, while modernizing the “Global Atlanta” styling to reflect that we have always been a digitally oriented publication, never burdened with managing the sunset of a legacy print operation.
Red remains our signature color, but it no longer has to work so hard, with the inclusion of more white space into the site design and a new cast of brand colors including dark blue, tan/gray and sprinklings of yellow.
We were excited to keep our globe, affectionately known by our team as the “onion,” beefing it up a bit in line with the bolder logo font to reflect both continuity with the past and our commitment to substance in our reporting.
It still leans at 23.5 degrees — the same axial tilt on which the world turns — to remind us that while things are always changing, historical themes have a way of coming back around.
Where We’re Going: Events and Partnerships
I took the reins of the business in 2019, 12 years into my Global Atlanta tenure and with a head full of ideas about how we could take the publication to the next level.
A key pillar of this plan was events, creating occasions for us to bring our business reporting into the real world and tap into the convening power of our decades-long presence in the community.
We’d already done this with Consular Conversations, a series of monthly luncheons with diplomats now seven years running. The pandemic delayed the expansion of that plan, but things are different now:
Opening the Playbook
With 2023 has come renewed energy and new team members, enabling us not only to host 20-30 Global Atlanta events per year, but also to open our connections, knowledge of companies’ global activities and marketing capabilities to clients utilizing our consulting services to guide their in-person outreach and thought leadership strategy in the growing Atlanta market.
All-Access
On the horizon, we’ll be introducing a one-price, all-access pass enabling readers to gain unfettered access into all Global Atlanta-branded events throughout the year. This is a first step toward reader-generated recurring revenue that will be a significant part of our business going forward — all predicated on the creation of value through the interplay of information and relationships.
Partners, Not Sponsors
All of the above illustrates the new stance we’ve taken toward our customers. As a for-profit, independently owned company, we’ve pivoted away from asking primarily for annual Sponsorship and have outlined a new Partnership model. It’s a subtle semantic tweak, but it represents a drastic change shift in how our business relates to the world. With our Partners, Global Atlanta isn’t asking for philanthropic support, but the chance to become an extension of their business development team. We take this approach in all of our engagements, as we believe that local journalism is not sustainable without a model built on value creation.
Now, I’m not naive. I know that every rebranding comes with the risk of alienating a brand’s core supporters in haste to appear new and fresh.
Whether you love or hate the new look, though, I hope it’s clear that our commitment to demonstrating and driving Atlanta’s connections with the world is unwavering.
Whether you’ve been with us for all 30 years or less than 30 days, I encourage you to keep us honest on these points.
My inbox is always open.
Trevor Williams
Managing Editor, Global Atlanta
Publisher, Grounded Global Media
