Psyche is a digital magazine from long-term client Aeon Media, dedicated to helping readers understand themselves and live well.

It offers thoughtful, beautifully crafted articles and videos – from essays on grief to guides on setting boundaries, Psyche’s content inspires growth and connection.

With its readership expanding and editorial vision evolving, Psyche was ready for its next chapter. It needed a refreshed brand and redesigned website to support richer content, a broader audience, and a seamless experience across all devices. Having created the original brand and site, Liquorice was proud to help lead the way forward.

Ready for a new chapter

As Psyche’s content offering grew, the existing site was starting to show its age. The structure made it hard for readers to find their way into the full breadth of topics on offer – particularly on mobile, which had overtaken desktop as the primary mode of access. Visually, the site lacked the flexibility and energy to match the richness of the editorial. And while the brand still had presence, it needed a refresh to feel as bold, warm and globally relevant as the stories it told.

Psyche came to us with a clear brief: evolve the brand identity, redesign the website to support a more diverse editorial model, and create a seamless, engaging experience across all devices. They also wanted to shine a brighter light on their expert contributors and introduce new content types with a fresh, dynamic look and feel.

Along the way, we tackled several key challenges:

• Creating a clear content architecture that made it easier for readers to understand, navigate and explore
• Elevating new flagship pieces of content
• Ensuring a seamless long-form reading experience across devices
• Meeting the needs of multiple stakeholders, including directors, editorial, marketing and development teams

Our deliverables included:

• A refreshed masthead and visual identity
• A full website redesign with new templates to support a broader range of content
• Mobile and desktop optimisation
• A new illustration brief to bring in animated and spot artwork
• A robust and flexible suite of email templates

The challenge for us was to walk a fine line – making the experience feel more dynamic, curated and exploratory without losing what readers already loved. It was about finding the sweet spot between sophistication and warmth, boldness and accessibility, all while supporting the needs of teams across the organisation.

Laying the groundwork with research and strategy

We began with a collaborative workshop to unpack goals, understand reader behaviour and identify areas where the experience was falling short. This was supported by a full site audit and publishing peer review to inform our recommendations.

One of the main findings was that, while readers loved Psyche’s content, the structure made it difficult to explore freely and follow their curiosity. On mobile in particular, the experience lacked the fluidity needed to support deep engagement.

To guide the direction, we presented a spectrum of brand and UX territories (from bold reimaginings to more refined evolutions) to help gauge Psyche’s appetite for change. Ultimately, the team opted for a careful evolution that preserved what readers valued, while better supporting the magazine’s broader editorial ambitions.

This led to a strategy focused on exploration over chronology and clarity over clutter.

Key strategic shifts included:

• Replacing chronological listings with curated, magazine-style sections
• Introducing new content portals and themed channels to showcase breadth
• Redesigning article templates to suit varied formats and experiences
• Elevating expert contributors to highlight editorial authority
• Prioritising sleek, intuitive mobile navigation

Designing for depth, clarity and curiosity

Psyche’s visual identity was refreshed to balance elegance with warmth and editorial flexibility. We refined the masthead, introduced more expressive typography, and updated the colour palette to feel more human and inviting.

The homepage was restructured to encourage exploration, highlighting curated collections, new content channels and flagship content. We created distinctive templates for both new and existing formats – including Notes to Self, Guides, Stories of Change, Videos and Ideas.

We also delivered a number of new features that made the experience more rewarding for both editors and readers:

• Dynamic, engaging index pages that surface new and related content
• Clean article layouts with strong visual hierarchy
• Greater flexibility for editors in how they style and structure content – including support for drop caps, pull quotes, multiple heading levels, and new modules like ‘Key Points’ and ‘Find Out More’
• Opportunities for readers to journey deeper – such as mid-article recommendations (‘You may like’), continuous scrolling on Notes to Self, and an ‘Up Next’ queue on video pages
• Improved search and filtering tools to make discovery easier and more intuitive
• Clear article labelling, colour coding, badges and metadata to help readers orient themselves and dive deeper into their areas of interest

To enhance the experience with warmth and personality, we commissioned illustrator Tallulah Fontaine to create a suite of custom illustrations. These artworks introduce moments of charm and surprise throughout the site, with select pieces brought to life through subtle animation. These animated elements were designed to gently draw attention to key touchpoints such as newsletter sign-ups and donation asks.

A seamless handover for development

While Liquorice led the design and strategy, Aeon Media's in-house development team brought the experience to life. They did a fantastic job implementing the designs – ensuring the site was fast, flexible and true to the creative vision across all devices.

A thoughtful relaunch for curious readers 

The new Psyche site launched smoothly, offering a richer, more intuitive and exploratory experience across all touchpoints.

By staying true to Psyche’s mission to offer thoughtful, high-quality content without barriers, the relaunch positions the magazine for continued growth and relevance – empowering readers around the world to explore, reflect and connect.