Blog redesigns are always experiences that are mixed with excitement and a little fear – today has been a day for both of those feelings as we launched a new design for Digital Photography School.
The new design includes an expansion from 1 blog to 3, a new portal/aggregation front page, Gravatars in comments and a lot more.
I won’t fully outline it here right now because I’ve asked the designer – Matt Brett (who has been a pleasure to work with) – if he’ll write a post for ProBlogger about it – but you can read my introduction to some of the changes on DPS in a post here.
Redesigns are always an exciting time… I just divided my one blog into seven a couple of weeks ago, and redesigned. It was a fun day to get everyone’s feedback.
Brent Riggs
http://www.brentriggs.com
The new design is just great. I’m looking for a redesign myself. Only those who had to find a good design really appreciate it ^^
I’m genuinely excited about the change, as a wannabe photographer.
As a blogger, I’m very excited about learning more about the specific motivations for the changes, and what your plans are for DPS over the coming years. Its very similar to what I was looking at doing. Was this something you had been keeping in mind since your early days on DPS or just how your vision evolved?
:)
– Jade
The design is defo worth checking out for anyone out there in blog land. See how the pros do it!
I’ve never really checked out DPS, but I’m sure this design will top that old one. It’s really good, and with Matt Brett as a designer, what’s not to love?
Looks great, and Matt looks like an awesome designer. I also have to say I love the color scheme – I really like the pastels.
Congrats Darren :)
Very exciting, Darren! I can’t wait to check it out.
Looks great Darren! Nice soft neutral colors. You got a good designer!
One suggestion, the text in the bottom section (3rd block) is not standing out well, like the text in block 1 and block 2.
great structure but i dont like the color scheme. not that my color scheme is better, its even worse :(
but im really happy that you are excited about the change :)
It is a very nice and clean design.
Very nicely done! Easy on the eyes and great content organization.
Adobe Photoshop doesn’t deserve its registered trademark anyways.
I love the colors and the organization. Amazing work by Matt Brett :)
Way cool Darren! It looks great! Talk about timing! I just finished wirting my post for my new redesign. And it’s going live on Friday!
2 Photo education blogs changing looks in the same week! CooL!
Well – I like new design COLOR combination. It’s pleasant to the eyes. But I’d expect the front page to be a little better than it currently is. Anyway, congrats for the new look.
The Google AdSense stands out a lot… I mean A LOT because of the white background. Do you find that making the ads stand out versus blending in with the design encourages more clicks?
The design is really awesome. Keep uo the great work. Thanks Greg Ellison
Looks great…But does that mean you have to do three times the work with three blogs?
Am always against the intro page, as I view it as a waste of time for potential visitors. What benefit does it offer to your visitors?
Looks good! Maybe too good?
Lots of people talking about how ugly sites work better with AdSense.
Hope you can comment in the future about any difference in earnings as a result of the design.
Amazing…The new theme suits the best for Photography websites/blog.
Best of luck with the new theme. I am sure it will be accepted in a good way by your regular readers at Digital Photography School.
I’d have to confer with everyone else, great new design! Really easy on the eyes and I love the organization – and that’s from just a quick once over!
So another portal style theme I see… I’m curious to know what the trends are like with this within blogging, it seems like a lot of sites are going this direction. I wonder when ShoeMoney will jump in? Although his site is less about timeless type content, and more just random thoughts so I’m not sure it would work as well for him.
The design is definitely eye catching and refreshing and the division of the blog into three separated by area of interest is also welcome. What I couldn’t guess earlier was that DPS belonged to you.. You rock man.. You are my ideal in blogging.
Thanks for such informative and nice articles for us lesser mortals.
I like the structure and soft landing.
Great new logo Darren.
The merged letters work really well, and branding is so important!
To me the new design does not look good. Too many colors. It looks to be a bit overdone. The idea is not bad at all. I just do not like the color implementation.
It’s a lovely change, the neutral colours are soft and easy on the eyes, which makes the content stand out – good one!
Very nice redesign! I love the colors and blending and it looks so much better, not as crowded or confusing, at least in my opinion.
Wow… it’s purdy. I do like how it’s much easier to visually select information based on color, topic, etc. Though I still don’t own a dSLR ;-)
The design is nice, very colorful.
nice design matt…
customizable wordpress as always..
I have to say I don’t like the design much. It’s clean and all, but not very exciting to look at. Pretty bland, in fact. I expected a lot more for a design you paid to have developed. Of course, content is what is most important in the long run.
I like the overall layout, but the first 2″ of the top of the page are very disctracting and do not flow well at well with the rest of the page.
Hey Darren,
I really miss knowing what the very latest post is. The design makes me feel a little bewildered by the content. Where do I start? I’ve read DPS for a while but I immediately clicked off this time. :(
Darren,
I love the content on DPS, and the new layout won’t make me stop reading. But just to be honest, I’m not trilled about the new layout at all. I liked the simplicity of the old design much better. But I’ll certainly adjust to the change… keep up the great work!
Hay it is cool. any tips in creating a logo?
How did the redesign affect your monetization strategy? — the design seems cleaner from a money-making perspective too….sure that’s fodder for a ProBlogger post…
I like it…a good example of how blogs are more than just blogs….