So this is what I’ve been hinting and getting at, I SPY ATL is live and has been going really REALLY well! My roommate Sarah and I started a few months back brainstorming, gathering content, designing the logos and with the help of our web development pal Natasha-who runs Nicely Built-we all created the website! I’ve taken some screen shots of my favorite parts of the site, let me explain!
The goal of this project is to “collect the unique and undiscovered parts of the city of Atlanta, and display them proudly for everyone to see. We embrace thoughtful narratives, uncovering the hidden, and taking the path less traveled. We aim to write about artists, musicians, creatives, problem-solvers, and everyone in between.” (via the site)
When you visit the ‘homepage’ it looks like below. Each story has a featured image and is tiled, similar to Pinterest. I like that when your cursor hovers over the image it shows “read more” above the photo. It’s sleek and user friendly.
The two main tabs our visitors will browse are the “view by spy type” and “neighborhoods.” We started with categories that first came to mind but will be expanding the range of categories as the site grows.
Above is what an individual post looks like, with the story’s body on the left and our IG feed on the right along with a “featured” post. We have the ability to have this on the homepage but we felt it was distracting and also ate up room for the other stories to be displayed.
One of my favorite things about the website and the idea is that we want the community to get involved and participate in the site. The “be a spy” tab is where they can do that with multiple options such as “i saw something” or “i am someone you should write about.”
Sarah put it best when she said:
I like to think of ourselves as the college radio version of Atlanta culture coverage: we don’t want anything corporatized, large-scale, mass produced. We want to cover the little guys, the new beginners, the small hustle. I’m excited about this; I hope you are too.
Read her take on the project here.
Thanks for reading and we hope you’ll visit I SPY ATL and follow along as we, and the city, showcase our favorite corners of Atlanta!
I Spy ATL can also be found on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook!
