As you’ve probably seen, The Blog Herald doesn’t look they way it used to. This is intentional, luckily, and part of our efforts to get better at everything. That’s the goal after all, so let’s be frank about it.
I mentioned the relaunch with a new design when I took over as the editor a few months back. I would’ve wanted to do it sooner, but you can’t get everything you want, and besides, the poor designer’s schedule was really full. Being my schedule, I did the design, and I hope you like it.
So let’s talk a little bit about the relaunch, shall we?
The New Beta Version
First of all, let’s get something straight right away: This site is currently in beta, which means that some things might not function properly just yet. This is due to a number of things, the most prominent one being that The Blog Herald is chock full of content, had a ridiculous amount of categories, and have a history that isn’t to be taken lightly. In other words, there’s a lot of stuff going on with the archives, the categorization, and with tagging. I’ll be keeping it in beta until everything works more or less as intended. Or at least until the full footer is up…!
That being said, this new version is fully functional, so you can browse the archives, or visit the brand new tag cloud, knowing that it behaves decently enough to be released to the public. We will update the site as usual, as well, so stick around.
About the New Design
The new design brings the content back in focus, which should mean a better flow and a more natural reading experience. We’ve got a simple top menu to make sure that you can dive into any main area of the site at any time, and the latest stories listed in traditional blog behaviour.
The small left column lists the hottest topics right now, being tags of course, which is something that The Blog Herald haven’t had before. This means that the archive isn’t properly tagged (yet), but everything new and most of the most recent updates are, so you can track what’s hot just by looking at this list, and read our extensive coverage of the various topics by clicking the links. Don’t forget the larger tag cloud either.
A site like The Blog Herald have a lot of needs, from traditional ads to linking other sites within the network, there are simply a lot of needs. That brought clutter to the previous version, something that isn’t entirely erased (again, out of need) but at least kept to a minimum.
I think I’ll leave you at that. Click around, try stuff out, see what you think. Personally, I think that the 100 latest stories page is a nice addition, making it easier to read up when you’ve been away for a few days. There’s more funky stuff on its way, so keep an eye out for new things here on The Blog Herald.
For now, thanks for reading, looking forward to your comments, and have a great weekend!
