The core strategic challenge was that CFR's most valuable work was invisible to the people most likely to act on it. Article types with very different functions were indistinguishable from each other, reports were buried, and members, the most engaged slice of the audience, were navigating a logged-in experience that felt like an inferior product. And the 94 percent of visitors who weren't members had no clear pathway to become more connected to CFR over time. The platform was designed around how CFR was organized internally, not the visitor experience.
The redesign reorients the site around users and their relationship to CFR's work, using content and product strategy, a refreshed brand, and a technical rebuild to drive longterm growth and opportunity.
A mismatch between reputation and presence
CFR's disjointed digital presence didn’t properly reflect the quality of its reporting. The site served people who already knew what they were looking for reasonably well. But for everyone else, it was hard to understand what CFR was, what it stood for, or why they should keep coming back. The design felt undifferentiated. Expert analysis looked the same as a news brief, and the most sought-after content was buried rather than centered.
The membership experience had its own issues. Members were among the site's most dedicated daily visitors, but the logged-in experience felt disconnected from the rest of the site. Signing in was difficult. The value of membership wasn't always apparent.
Meanwhile, the backend was slow. The site scored a failing grade on Google's page speed index. The team responsible for it was forced to spend too much time managing technical debt and not enough time on the work that mattered.
Brand reputation that reads on screen
The visual identity needed to close the gap between CFR’s reputation and how it appears online. We designed toward a set of principles: expertise, prestige, warmth, and durability. This is a nearly century-old institution, and the design should feel like it. All design and art direction choices contribute to a sense of authority and depth, with a color palette centered on newsprint-esque black and parchment. Color is used sparingly and with intention: for instance, a copper eyebrow signals expert content throughout the site. Typography is classic yet ownable, a mix of Adobe Caslon Pro for headlines with DM Sans for an accessible, scannable interface. Motion principles favor snappy, purposeful transitions over anything bouncy, flashy, or distracting.
Wayfinding as both utility and brand expression
Users typically arrive at CFR in one of two modes: they're browsing to discover, or they're researchers hunting for something specific. The site had to serve both without sacrificing either, especially since users might switch between modes. Search and discovery had to work together in the context of a user’s journey.
The existing search was broken. We reimagined it so results are grouped by content type so users can orient quickly and get to the right thing without filtering through noise. Search isn't confined to a global bar; it's a repeatable UI pattern that surfaces throughout the site wherever it's useful.
Navigation is treated as both a wayfinding tool and a brand moment. Rather than burying content under nested trees, the new navigation is rich and flat, letting users get to specific countries, topics, or content types directly without passing through intermediary landing pages. It also calls out what's happening now, including live events and streams. In this way, the new navigation seizes on a brand opportunity to orient and welcome visitors while also emphasizing what matters to CFR.
Content strategy: all roads lead to expertise
During our workshop with the CFR team, we mapped the full content ecosystem against two axes: timely versus evergreen, and general versus expert. That exercise produced a clear picture of how the different content types serve various audiences and where CFR has the most to gain.
While some areas of the quadrant, like news, are hard for CFR to differentiate themselves in the market and not worth overinvesting in, the analytical area is where CFR has a genuine edge. News is a commodity; trusted expertise is CFR. We made that distinction much more visible. Expert bylines now appear on teasers. Expert headshots and the copper "EXPERT TAKE" label appear on articles. If it was written by someone who has spent a career studying this, the reader should know that immediately.
Backgrounders are CFR’s most-visited content type. We built on their success by weaving them into the broader site experience, so that hovering over a term like "tariffs" anywhere on the site surfaces a brief explanation and a link to go deeper. The effect reinforces CFR's position as a research tool and makes the depth of the library visible at every turn. It’s both explanatory and promotional.
This exercise also allowed us to identify the highest-impact work that CFR produces: Task Force Reports, which are read the most by people in positions of power. We designed the pages to lead with an executive summary, feature video prominently as a fast path to the recommendations, and explain transparently what you're reading and how it was made. The goal is to make influential work as accessible as possible to people who are pressed for time but positioned to act on it.
Across all content types, we introduced a print-inspired two-column article layout drawn from magazines like Foreign Affairs, with a dedicated left channel for related reports, expert profiles, key takeaways, and newsletter signups. It creates white space that makes long reads feel approachable and builds structural pathways toward CFR's most valuable work on every single page.
Membership experience
CFR's members are its most engaged users. Many visit daily. They were also, until now, navigating what effectively felt like two separate products: the public site and the member services platform. Logging in was cumbersome. The connection between people and content was weak.
We redesigned the member experience so that the logged-in state of CFR.org and the MSP are the same thing. The homepage personalizes for members, surfacing upcoming events and recommended content based on interests. Navigation exposes member-exclusive content within the same structure everyone else uses, rather than splitting it off into a separate experience. Events transform when you're logged in: you can see who else is attending, register with a single click, and access audio, transcripts, and attendee information after the fact.
The member directory gets a corresponding upgrade, surfacing connections based on shared interests or events attended, with controls for how members want to be contacted. The redesigned member experience is built around that principle that one-to-one connections are more important than one-to-many communications.
Building a real funnel
Members are CFR's most dedicated audience, but they represent only about six percent of site visitors. The other 94 percent, most of whom visit rarely, are the growth opportunity. Converting occasional visitors into regular ones requires getting to know them, which requires giving them reasons to identify themselves.
We designed a tiered registration system alongside the full membership offering. Free registration unlocks bookmarking, event registration, and access to certain transcripts and audio. The registration prompts are built into natural moments in the content experience: following an expert, signing up for a subject digest, downloading a report. Each ask is specific and direct about what you get in return.
Newsletter signups are integrated into the two-column article layout, positioned in the left channel on desktop and mid-article on mobile. They’re forthright and clear, naming the newsletter and the cadence rather than offering vague "latest updates" prompts. The site also encourages YouTube follows when users watch video on-platform, recognizing that CFR's audience spends more time on those platforms than on CFR.org, and that staying in people's orbit of awareness matters more than pulling everyone back to the site.
Infrastructure that keeps up
The current site's technical debt was costing the team time they didn't have. The rebuild establishes a modern stack with a component-based design system that lets editors compose and publish without developer support. Page speed goes from failing to fast. Governance documentation covers both technical and non-technical users. The result is a team that can focus on what it's actually there to do.
