New WP.com Design

We just made the redesign of WordPress.com live. Watch how when you make your window smaller the tags on the sidebar drop to the bottom.

31 thoughts on “New WP.com Design

  1. Whoa! That thing is damn busy. I like parts of the design, but there is just TOOOOOO much content splashed around and squished together. The layout should separate the content, not the size/boldness of the letters. Ugh. I’m not a fan.

  2. I personally feel that it’s a little half-assed. This doesn’t seem to be the case, but is it still being completed, Avalonstar or Simplebits style?

    This page imparticular seems completely uncompleted. The images do not match the width of the site (seems to me they are probably the same ones from the old site?) and the text was formatted quickly and kind of sloppily.

    The homepage is also a bit chaotic, whereas the older one (although less colorful) was very straightforward and pretty nice in my opinion.

    I really love WordPress and have really liked everything you guys have cranked out so far, but this just really doesn’t seem to match up.

  3. Um, Safari 2.0.4 here, on Tiger, on the last Powerbook (sob) ever made: Buttons? Sidebars? Dropping to the bottom?

    Luckily, no problems with the themes I’ve tried out and hope to god have chosen one … Sooo much tasty stuff available for WP, so much talent … (I’m a Blogger ref-u-gee) I can hardly stand it.

  4. The keyword side bar is a cool CSS trick, but isn’t the concept of moving key elements of the sites navigation around a potentially confusing one to “normal” users?

    Why don’t you fix it to the bottom. It looks nice (less cluttered) there.

  5. @Michael: Whoa man, sure, give constructive criticism, but what you’ve said seems pretty harsh to me.

    I’m liking it. If anything, the old design is what looked incomplete in my opinion, what with the grainy drop shadow image and unstyled links. I think the visual hierarchy of the new design is excellent and certainly looks a lot more professional and enticing.

  6. @Dylan: Yea, I guess I was a little harsh. The thing is, and I could be wrong here, but I’m pretty sure I know what was going through Matt’s (the designer Matt) head while making this.

    The only reason I can come up with as to why it looks incomplete (not half-assed, poor choice of words) is because maybe they really were rushing a redesign. However, the only time I think a design should be rushed is when you have a certain window of opportunity that, if not met, will seriously damage you.

    Thing is, they already had a site up, and it was perfectly acceptable to me. I guess it just isn’t something I would have done. I can see the site evolving though, and have already seen some changes, so maybe it’s a work in progress.

    And please, I hope no one misunderstands me as accusing Matt Thomas as being a sub-par designer. I think he has done some amazing stuff and hes truly awesome.

  7. I agree that it’s quite busy, but it’s still a MASSIVE improvement over the old design, which was in my opinion, very unprofessional looking.

    In summary, keep the styleof the new one, but reintroduce the simplicdity of the old one.

  8. It looks very nice.

    And I don’t agree with people who think there is too much content. I think you have managed to make it very easy to use, and nice looking 🙂

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