Hooray! I'm sure you've noticed by now that Neatorama has a new look (all you RSS readers, come take a look) and a couple of new features.
First of all, I'd like to thank Nathan Mazur of Scared of Bees who did the new art for the blog. Nathan, as you may know, also designed some of the neatest T-shirts we carry on the Neatorama Shop. I think that his quirky and fun style certainly compliments what the blog is all about (be sure to scroll all the way down!)
The blog has two new major features:
- Lite/Mobile version by Mobify. This is a full version of the blog that is optimized for viewing on your phone (though you can certainly use your regular browser). This "lite" version has no ads and fewer bells and whistles.
- Best of Neatorama, a compilation of featured Bathroom Reader and mental_floss articles, as well as Neatorama Exclusives. I think the tiled images present a good way to scan quickly through the many full-length articles we've published before. We've only covered 2009 and 2010 articles so far ... we'll roll out more later.
Besides the blog, the Upcoming Queue and the Neatorama Shop also have new skins, so be sure to check 'em out (technically, this has been a triple re-design, which may explain why it took so long!).
Undoubtedly there are bugs (I apologize ahead of time). If you noticed that something is awry, please let us know in the comment section. We'll continue to roll out the redesign over the next couple of days. We'll also announce the winner of the T-shirts as promised in our previous post on redesign suggestions soon.
As a final note, I'd like to mention that one big aspect of this redesign is to use the blog to introduce indie artists to millions of new fans. I hope that we can institute a regular rotation of artists (the first being Nathan) through website designs, and regular as well as featured blog posts, in order to give them a significant exposure on the web.
So. Do you like it/hate it? What do you think?
[poll=16] Update 2/3/10 - added poll. I should also add that in our almost-5-year history as a blog we've had 7 layout/design changes (some announced, most not - they've been incremental and so subtle that most people didn't even notice) before this radical one ;)
@ted - it's a space turtle!
Scooter - I've been meaning to add back the next/previous buttons. Here they are. Thanks for reminding me!
One teensy recommendation...this is something I see on many many blogs but I figured a blog as fantastically sophisticated, handsome and intelligent as Neatorama might be just the one to set the standard and help rid the world of one of my pet peeves: The 'Next Page' link takes you to previous articles, while the 'Previous Page' link takes you to articles that (chronologically) came next! Makes me see red!
Is 'Previous Articles' and 'Newer Articles' too much to ask for? Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh (choke) (sob) (thud)
As you might expect, I have too much time on my hands.