09/21/20

8 Rules for Designing a Brand Journal on Prowly 💝


The Brand Journal module powered by Prowly is most frequently used to serve as an online press center. Due to its flexibility, it may also be used for writing a blog or running a brand’s online magazine. Some clients also use it to build an entire website. Here are some simple rules to help you create a useful and clean online service, regardless of the role it is intended to play for your audiences.

Be Sure to Define a Clear Web Address

Creating a Brand Journal on Prowly begins with defining the address at which it will be accessible to your readers. Make sure the name is short and clear for your target audiences. If you’re using our subdomain for your Brand Journal, remember to include the name of your company/brand in the address, e.g., company.prowly.com.



If you choose to move your Brand Journal to your own subdomain, remember that the address should reflect the nature of your website, e.g., media.yourdomain.com or magazine.yourdomain.com.

Read more on how the type of subdomain affects SEO in our guidebook-style piece on how Prowly supports SEO.

Create Thematic Tabs

In your Brand Journal, you can create thematic tabs that will be visible in the main menu bar. It’s crucial to have such a division planned from the start. The names of your tabs should reflect the subjects covered in the texts you produce (your Stories) and store under different tabs. An additional advantage of creating tabs is that they constitute additional links in the search engine. No tab will be visible until you add at least one Story to it.

If you only add one Story to your tab, it will be visible immediately after clicking on its name in the menu. This is how you can create the so-called static pages from your tabs, e.g., ABOUT US or OUR HISTORY, that will improve your Brand Journal by including some general information on the company or brand itself.

Adjust the Appearance of Your Brand Journal to Your Brand

You can adjust the appearance of the Brand Journal to your brand/company identification in just three simple steps: upload the logo, add background picture (Background), and set up the main color (Main Color).

The background picture will be displayed in the main section (so-called Slider) of your Brand Journal until you pin any text in its place. This picture will also be displayed whenever someone shares the address of your Brand Journal in social media. Thus, try to choose a graphic that is as universal as possible and one that matches the very nature of your page.

Stick to traditional formats and sizes of images, namely JPG format, landscape orientation, 1,920 x 640 pixels. The main colour is the colour of category names, the background of any content posted to your Brand Journal, and the background of the tiles that display text and that don’t have any graphics uploaded in place of content. Because article and category names are displayed in white, try to choose your main color in a way to match the visual identification of the company and contrast with the titles:

Upgrade Your Brand Journal And Add Social Media Content

Is your company/brand is present and active in social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn), on video platforms (YouTube, Vimeo) and/or has a blog? Such content will perfectly complement the story behind your brand. Thanks to this, the reader visiting your Brand Journal will be able to view all the materials you create and post online for different purposes.

Create an All-purpose Press Kit for Journalists

If the Brand Journal is intended to serve as your online press center, we recommend adding a Press Kit, which is a package of all-purpose informational materials on your brand/company. You can create thematic folders in your Press Kit and add any number of any size graphic materials, documents, and videos (that are posted on YouTube or Vimeo). When creating Press Kits, we recommend to remember the following two things:

• The first material you add to a folder will be displayed on its cover (you can easily change their order in the settings panel of the Press Kit);
• The titles of posted materials may be changed directly in the app—it’s a convenient way to make sure they are clear (the names of your attachments also affect the rank of your Brand Journal in Google!).

Come Up With Clear Titles

Try to be brief and don’t capitalize the titles. Research shows that our brains process capitalized titles as a sequence of characters in which each of these characters is analyzed separately. Titles of your press releases or any other texts (Stories) will be more reader-friendly if they will be written as a sentence. Ideally, just follow the rules for capitalization in titles of articles contained in a style guide of your choice.

Make Sure the Reader Knows How to Reach You

It may sound trivial, but giving your readers the possibility to easily and quickly reach you is fundamental. You may find some additional space for adding contact information in the settings panel for the Brand Journal and in the content creator. Here, you can create contact profiles and manage their visibility. Additionally, thanks to the custom script integration function, you can add the Chat function offered by such apps as LiveChat or Intercom to your Brand Journal.

Skillfully Match Lead Images to the News You Post

JPG format, landscape orientation, 1,920 x 640 px—stick to these parameters each time you’re adding graphics/images as a background of a Story and 1,280 x 600 px as Social Media Image. What is the difference between these two?

• Story background is a background image that is added in the creator. It is visible in the background of your Story and on the tile in the Brand Journal below the slider section if you don’t add a separate Social Media Image,
• Social Media Image is a picture that may be added alternatively in your Story’s settings. It will then be displayed as the background of the tile with a specific Story in the Brand Journal and whenever someone shares this Story in social media.

In both cases, remember that the background image should match the theme of your Story and be “clean”—in other words, don’t put any text that you want to be visible and readable on it. The background of your Story should not distract the reader. It is the title and the lead that displays when placing the cursor on the tile with a specific Story that should catch the attention of your audiences. Never add the logo of your company/brand as the background to a Story. Because the platform is fully responsive, it will scale proportionately to the center depending on the device on which your Brand Journal is viewed.

If you don’t have your own, original image to use as the background, you can always use free stock photo libraries like Unsplash or Pexels. Not all your Stories must have background pictures. A Brand Journal with images displaying only on random tiles and with the main color in the background on the remaining tiles will be even more easily read and neat.
Joanna Drabent