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Yen Press

Showcasing the Best of Manga and Graphic Novels:
A Total Transformation

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Challenges.

Full-bleed imagery. Consolidated navigation. UX excellence. Heavy database architecture. Third-party integrations. Book publishing automation. Smart title release calendar. Custom CMS. Branded PDF reader tailored to manga. JY for Kids standalone website. eCommerce buildout. Over 11,000 pages, one of the most extensive sites in the industry. WCAG 2.1 audits.

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Although we just launched the sites, I’ve already seen an increase in organic traffic. We improved our search ranking since we started working with eDesign Interactive.

- Director, Yen Press

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Technical.

Web Design, UX/UI Design, Responsive Design, Front and Back-End Development, Motion Graphics, Web Animation, Project Management, Third-party Integrations, CakePHP Custom CMS, GDPR Compliance, WCAG  2.1 Level A Conformance, Web Accessibility, SEO Boost.

User-Friendly Platform for 3,000+ Comics and Manga Titles

Yen Press, the leading comics publisher in North America, presents an extensive catalog of over 3,000 titles, including acclaimed Japanese manga, Korean comics, and original graphic novel series. The company is committed to sharing a wide range of stories with audiences of fans worldwide.

With the inefficiencies of their previous WordPress site and the cumbersome manual input process for each book release, Yen Press realized the need to revamp their platform. With hundreds of books published annually, the need for more streamlined navigation and organization hindered user experience. Yen Press wanted a website that is easy to navigate and manage, designed for a broad audience between the ages of 13 and 30, including comics lovers and passionate collectors.

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eDesign improved Yen Press' catalog presentation, modernized the design with full-bleed imagery, and distinguished the publisher from competitors. Our team prioritized intuitive navigation and visual appeal. Drawing on our marketing expertise, we designed a sleek, minimalistic website that accentuates the artwork of each title. Inspired by publishers like Marvel and Fox, we aimed to create a structure that allows users to discover content among Yen Press's extensive collection of genres, titles, series, and art styles.

Discover Books Easily by Format, Genre & Brand

The new website categorizes books not only by digital formats (audio, digital, paperback) but also by genre (novel, manga, comic) and brands (IZE Press, JNC, YenON, JY, etc.), with metadata tagging for scalability and flexibility in search results and category pages. With hundreds of releases annually, our search feature ensures that users can effortlessly navigate through a list of titles with a filtering system developed to accommodate complexity, including categorization by genres, sub-genres, and age ratings. Entire book collections are easily accessible from a single page, akin to browsing products on an online store, vastly improving the site’s organization.

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Automated Data Process

The initial challenge in reorganizing Yen Press's extensive database revolved around structuring its vast amount of information effectively. A subsequent complication arose with automation. To overcome this obstacle, we introduced ONIX, an XML metadata file format tailored for book publishers to overcome this obstacle. We incorporated massive amounts of metadata through ONIX Feeds, including authors, prices, genres, descriptions, release dates, age groups, and more.

We developed a script that scans for daily updates from Yen Press and imports any new information automatically. The site dynamically constructs book content, adds new titles under existing collections, or generates new book pages. This automated process enables Yen Press’ team to publish quickly and effortlessly.

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Intelligent Calendar of New realeases

Moreover, our program schedules upcoming books into an intelligent calendar of new releases, further streamlining the publishing process and helping users discover and filter new titles. This user-friendly calendar showcases book releases, empowering Yen Press to promote new stories and engage its audience effectively.

Midway through our collaboration with Yen Press, we realized that the sheer volume of information, data, metadata, and images involved in the project exceeded what a WordPress CMS could effectively manage. In response, we made the proactive decision mid-project to transition to a custom CMS, demonstrating our team’s flexibility and adaptability.

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Incredibly Responsive and Fast

The website is built on the latest CakePHP and ElasticSearch, making it incredibly responsive and fast despite the colossal amount of visuals and information. The site is mobile-first and accessible from any device.

We also incorporated a vibrant Yen Press news section design complemented by tags and dynamic content organization. Our development team embarked on one more coding project to transition historical articles and tags to the new site.

Additionally, we integrated social media and YouTube feeds to boost user engagement, along with functionalities allowing users to buy books directly from the website, thus improving convenience.

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In depth data handling

Optimizing the website's performance presented complex challenges and required intricate logic and extensive testing...

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... and extensive optimization efforts, meticulously verifying the accuracy of all title data and ISBN information while establishing optimal loading performance before the website's launch. Our team performed tests against predetermined benchmarks and fine-tuned scripts to adapt to fluctuating user loads.

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We conducted thorough due diligence, quality assurance...

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Our back-end development team managed monumental feeds of data from the book publisher into the website and dedicated significant time to fine-tuning the site’s performance. Custom solutions, including an image manipulation tool and a tool for importing vast collections of books, were developed to manage the massive amount of content.

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We strategically distributed data across two servers, preventing overload on the central server...

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...and ensuring smooth and fast operation despite large file sizes. This approach also fortified the security of the website. The site launched with over 11,000 pages, making it an extensive platform. Yen Press is thrilled with the new design, which allows them to manage their content effortlessly.

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I’m most impressed with the site’s design — it looks perfect for our brand. I also like that eDesign Interactive is a one-stop shop we can contact for all our requirements.

- Director, Yen Press

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JY for Kids

eDesign also worked on redesigning JY for Kids, adhering to Yen Press's brand guidelines but catering to younger audiences with a child-friendly approach. The new website includes more prominent visuals, brand colors, and logical headline hierarchies to create a more engaging, readable design. Here, too, we made a clear taxonomy of content to help parents discover new series and titles for their kids based on genre and subgenre.

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Online shopping experience

As a first step towards a larger eCommerce buildout, we transitioned Yen Press’ site from using FoxyCart for checkout to integrating Shopify to handle all eCommerce needs, thus creating a convenient online shopping experience. Customers can now buy books directly from Yen Press' website, leading to a significant increase in sales (449% in just the first month!). This was achieved through automated processes that eliminated manual tasks, allowing Yen Press to focus on its core business. In combination with our paid media efforts, we will be able to start reporting on sales that are directly attributable to advertising.

Custom PDF Solution

Our team stepped up and created a custom PDF solution tailored to reading manga. It is fully branded and offers significant cost savings compared to specialized, out-of-the-box solutions. Bespoke functionality includes horizontal and vertical navigation options, single- and double-page spreads, zoom tools, and a promotional message at the end of the reading experience.

We are also looking into expanding the book previewer into a full-fledged direct-to-consumer book reader, including selling virtual products for import into a user’s preferred eReader or developing a YP-branded eReader app. We are also planning a standalone website for Ize Press, similar to JY for Kids.

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Numbers

5,661 book titles
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15 years in business
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1 custom CMS
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2 sites launched
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11,000 web pages
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