{"id":474,"date":"2024-04-01T15:04:55","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T19:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/?page_id=474"},"modified":"2025-12-12T11:18:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T16:18:21","slug":"custom-editorial-projects","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/departments\/interactive-design\/role-specific-info\/designers\/custom-editorial-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial Design Project Process"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>Initial Request<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>When an Editor or story Producer from an editorial division [<em>BU Today<\/em>, in this example] has the budget for an important feature story (or series of stories) and wants a custom user experience to explore to convey the story, they contact Interactive Design through Project Management.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Prioritization<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>After the initial request, a Project Manager gathers early team members to define the project scope, estimate hours, set priorities, and fit everything into a schedule amid resourcing. The Project Manager, or a Creative Director [whom they reach out to], may either designate or inquire a prospective Lead Designer for a rough time estimate.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Work Begins!<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Understanding <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/departments\/interactive-design\/id-info-knowledge-processes\/i-d-roles-responsibilities\/\">roles and responsibilities<\/a> and which team member to involve is crucial.<\/p>\n<p>A typical ID editorial project team consists of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Design &amp; Front-End Development<\/strong> [a Lead Designer]<\/li>\n<li><strong>Project Management &amp; Planning<\/strong> [a PM]<\/li>\n<li><strong>Creative Direction<\/strong> [as oversight, a CD or ACD]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Once the scope, timeline, and team are set, work starts.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2><strong>Editorial General Process<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Intake Phase<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Initial discussions regarding the needs of the story, its objectives, and its requirements (including budget constraints) happen during this time.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Project Kick-off Meeting with Editorial Publication editor or producer; the client. Designer should note considerations and ask:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What\u2019s the article about and who\u2019s featured?\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What asides or similar elements, if any, are involved?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What publication is the article in and when is the launch date?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gather copy, brief research appropriate of subject or topic, story at hand.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Implementation <strong>Phase<\/strong><\/h3>\n<h4>Design<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lead Designer brings together Styleboard options (and mockups \u2014 if scoped, and schedule\/timing allows).<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mockups revised, per feedback.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once Approval&#8217;s granted: the Lead Designer will coordinate with the Writer, Editor, or Producer Editorial to establish who will implement the written copy into a privately published WordPress post and\/or collection [if series] of posts in the <a href=\"http:\/\/bu.edu\/bu-article\/wp-admin\">bu.edu\/bu-article<\/a> CMS and set a scheduled date for launch.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the post(s) is scheduled for a future date [project deadline], there\u2019s no need for it to be privately posted. [This needs to be confirmed.]<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Editorial Production is responsible for inputting content. In some cases where support is needed with some visual assets, or a special block arrangement\/grouping is needed to match mockup, then a designer would support including copy\/images.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Development\/Production<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Lead Designer initiates developing the article.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>With a git app [<a href=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/departments\/interactive-design\/i-d-role-specific-info\/designers-developers\/common-processes-for-designers-developers\/\">Tower<\/a>, for example], the Lead Designer clones down <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/bu-ist\/id-editorial-articles\/\"><span>id-editorial-articles<\/span><\/a><span> to their local machine, creating a branch for their article and\/or series.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Enable git-flow, or right-click on the remote <code>develop<\/code> branch of the id-editorial-articles repository and click &#8220;Create A New Branch.&#8221; Set it up locally and uncheck the track to this branch option.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lead Designer downloads a copy of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/bu-ist\/r-static-starter\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">r-static-starter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a repository, renaming it to:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><code>Year-Article-or-Series-Name<\/code>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While in the new branch: move the newly created <code>Year-Article-or-Series-Name<\/code> folder into its relevant publication [<em>BU Today<\/em>, <em>Bostonia<\/em>, <em>Brink<\/em>, or other] directory of your local clone of <code>id-editorial-articles<\/code>. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Opening that directory in your Code Editor: switch to appropriate Node Version Manager [\u201c<code>nvm<\/code>\u201d] by typing in <code>nvm use 12<\/code> into your code editor or OS terminal and run \u201c<code>npm install<\/code>\u201d (if unsuccessful: reach out on <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/departments\/interactive-design\/id-info-knowledge-processes\/communication-channels\/\">Slack<\/a> to either a Dev, Dev Director, or Senior Lead Designer for help in the <code>#interactive-design<\/code> channel). If you&#8217;re not experiencing any issues, type in \u201c<code>grunt<\/code>\u201d and hit enter for automatic code compiling every time you save an SASS partial.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Establish <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/departments\/interactive-design\/i-d-role-specific-info\/designers-developers\/\">an SFTP connection<\/a> to the remote server directory of the relevant publication.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Commit and push code at the end of every asset, coding session, or at end of day [if not already].<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\" bu-callout alignright\"><\/p>\n<h5><strong>What is r-static-starter and id-editorial-articles?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p dir=\"auto\"><code>r-static-starter<\/code> is a repository package of files designed for code building either static, blank websites [or, in this case,] custom editorial articles. It pulls in tools from <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/departments\/interactive-design\/offerings-dev-overview\/i-d-services-projects\/\">Responsive Foundation<\/a> and includes some basic SASS code mixins and variables to help Lead Designers get started with development.<\/p>\n<p><code>id-editorial-articles<\/code> is ID&#8217;s centralized repository collecting all editorial features.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/departments\/interactive-design\/i-d-role-specific-info\/designers-developers\/bu-coding-standards-code-reviews\/\">Read more about GitHub to understand repositories<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<p dir=\"auto\"><strong>Quality Assurance, <\/strong><strong>Proofreading, and Final Client Review<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When every asset has been Dev&#8217;d, the Lead Designer then browser-checks and tests the story or series for quality assurance, committing, and making a final push up to the <code>id-editorial-articles<\/code> repository, <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/departments\/interactive-design\/i-d-role-specific-info\/designers-developers\/bu-coding-standards-code-reviews\/pull-request-code-reviews\/\">opening a Pull Request for code review<\/a>. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lead Designer presents the final, developed article with Editorial Publication client.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">f approved: the Lead Designer merges the remote branch within <code>id-editorial-articles<\/code>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If there&#8217;s feedback: the Lead Designer adjusts their code as necessary to meet approval with further dev, until approval is met.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Initial Request When an Editor or story Producer from an editorial division [BU Today, in this example] has the budget for an important feature story (or series of stories) and wants a custom user experience to explore to convey the story, they contact Interactive Design through Project Management. Prioritization After the initial request, a Project [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12906,"featured_media":0,"parent":228,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12906"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4187,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/474\/revisions\/4187"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/marcom-team\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}