Channel and Article Design

Publications in Apple News are called Channels. With the right knowledge, they’re customisable and can accurately reflect the look and feel of your digital product.

The FlatPlan design team handles the customisation of your channel and its articles. We work alongside your design team to ensure we capture the correct look and feel of your publication.

Apple has quality standards that all Apple News publishers must meet. We understand these standards well and will always ensure your publication design meets these standards.

FlatPlan article pages utilise the full functionality of Apple News Format – the underlying code that controls how articles are displayed on the app. This means we’re able to feature responsive design, flexible layouts and dark mode compatibility. All components of your articles will be replicated for your Apple News channel. This means your content will be presented with branded typography, branded design motifs, video support for a wide range of players, multimedia embeds and anything else you might see in digital publications.

These are the details we require from you:

1. Licensed fonts in TTF or OTF format
2. Brand guidelines (if available)

Our team will create designs and present them to you for approval. Once your team has signed off on these, we will build them into Apple News pages for final sign-off before pushing your channel live.

Your contact for design approval should have access to Apple products for “live” testing – preferably an iPhone and iPad.

Apple’s UI

Below, ‘all articles’ is a recirculation area. This is part of Apple’s UI, so the design of this cannot be tweaked.

Other considerations

There are other areas of Apple News a publication has control over.

The channel logo will, naturally, most likely be the logo of the corresponding publication. For maximum legibility on the platform, ensure your channel logo features horizontal text on one line, with a transparent background (not white) – no fill. Apple requests that your logo match the name of the publication. It must be a .png logo of 256 pixels in height and width (minimum) with an aspect ratio of no more than 10:1. This is so it remains legible in article listings, where logos are often reduced to a very small size.

Channel logos are added in iCloud Settings for your channel, under Branding > Logo

Your channel will require an icon as well: a square representation of the channel logo which appears below the Channels & Topics list on all pages of the app.

Channel icons must be uploaded as a square .png or .jpg and should be at least 120×120 pixels, though we’d recommend a width and height of at least 1000 pixels.

Channel icons are added in iCloud Settings for your channel, under Branding > Logo

Lastly, consider your channel tile. The channel tile is a combination of the logo and a cover image, and appears when a user clicks the Discover Channels & Topics button below Channels & Topics.

It’s important to ensure that your logo and cover image work well together, as the channel tile is the first impression a user gets of your publication. When they use the app for the first time and are invited to indicate their interests, publications are recommended to them using channel tiles. The channel tile will be your only representation to a user who knows nothing about your publication.

Apple requires your cover image to be a .png or .jpg of at least 600×600 pixels. There are two types of cover image:

• Static: a static cover image will remain the same in your channel tile. It’s a great choice for brands with an instantly identifiable logo mark
• Dynamic: a dynamic cover image pulls lead images from articles in your feed. This way, your channel tile will constantly correspond to the latest news your publication has covered

Channel tiles are added in iCloud Settings for your channel, under Branding > Cover Image