A New Look, and Perhaps a New Way to Look Forward
Going forward, the news will be a little less Murrow and a little more rock and roll.
Starting today, we’ve taken the first step toward what will be significant changes both in how you read our news, and how we report it. Our new design is a somewhat customized edition of Melvin Lee’s Classical Gamer. It may look familiar to you as other sites, including Sonic Wrecks, have utilized its parent theme, Arras. It is, hopefully, cleaner and easier to read than the previous design we had for nearly three years.
Why the visual change? While I admired the previous design for promoting substance over style, it really took the Sonic Stadium’s April Fools gag BIGNEWS, to understand the site was showing its age. So gone are the black, white, chrome and lens flares, and in is something we hope you’ll appreciate.
Our core mission hasn’t changed. We strive to bring you the latest Sonic, Sega, community, and other relevant gaming news quickly and clearly. We recognize your core passion is for Sonic; being Blue. But we also believe for most, it isn’t the only thing you care about. We want to give you a more complete picture of cause and effect within the frame of our mission; how one seemingly unrelated matter could have an impact on Blue. Say, for example, that Nintendo announces a next generation home console and abandons the Wii–how will that impact Sega’s relationship with the company, and by default, Sonic’s near flagship presence on its systems? By going Beyond Blue, we hope to offer a greater understanding of these more abstract ideas, apply them to what you care about most, and bring to you a more complete experience.
The most obvious philosophical change may be the one you haven’t immediately noticed. While we remain legally known as TSSZ News, and the term will continue to be used in stories, “News” is no longer in our masthead up top. For some of you–in particular, the haters–this will be significant. For us, it may allow a little more latitude to experiment with more ideas beyond straight news.
Speaking of haters, I am well aware one of the core complaints against this site is its rhetoric and tone, and how we will cover less than flattering stories. Even though I’d guess more than 95 percent of our content since 2008 has been positive, there remain a handful who wish to only look at the remaining less than five percent. I cannot guarantee that area of our news philosophy will change, and even if it did, there’s no guarantee critics will be satisfied; they would just move to something else to pick me apart with. So, perhaps there’s a way to not look at the if, or the should, but the how. That’s another philosophical change under deliberation right now, the results of which should reflect in future articles.
What else have we done? Here’s a small list of additions and changes:
- All community coverage now falls under a new banner: A Blue World.
- For our registered users, you’ll now find the login link at the bottom right of the page instead of the top right.
- We’ve moved the search bar down, and our InstaNews E-Mail newsletter link up.
- You’ll also notice a couple other buttons to the right of the navigation menu: One for RSS, and another for our Twitter page.
- Yes, we have a Twitter, and I will speak my mind on it from time to time (for reasons other than the fact I can!) We’d love to have you as a follower.
- A page on site policies has been added, which includes our still active Sensitivity Rule, as well as our rules for commenting. All who wish to comment on stories should familiarize themselves with the rules before doing so.
We hope you enjoy or at least warm up to this new look and gradual new way of doing things around here going forward. You can offer your praise or disdain below in the comments section, as well as any bug reports.
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You could implement Disqus to manage comments… That will be an interesting upgrade
No problem at all. In fact, the new look for the site looks nice.
I rather like it; no reason why one can’t have substance AND style. And I do like how you’re aiming for subjects that isn’t necessarily news. Although I’m absolutely NOT a fan of where you placed the log in option. It took me forever to find it.
I like the new look, although I couldn’t find the log in until I fully read this article…..if it’s just me I’ll shut up because I’m an idiot who can’t find log ins lol…
But once I found it it’s easy to remember and I won’t have future problems…so only a minor one time complaint….other than that the site looks great….now I just look forward to Sonic 4 Episode II news and other Sonic news….
Woah. It’ll take me a little to get used to it, but cool
I think this looks great
I sure was wondering if there was coming new layout, since this site’s been having these morning maintenances.
But it sure looks great, good job!
It’ll take awhile to get used to this, but I think I can dig it.
However, I think you shouldn’t change any of the negative news you guys have. You’re all about Sonic and SEGA, the good and the bad. Just because some people don’t want to see something bad about their company shouldn’t stop you from doing what you guys do. I love the constructive criticism sometimes showed in articles.
I personally liked the old layout better. This one seems too dark on the sides and busy in the header. I’ll get used to it though =P
The older layout seemed to have harmony, This one just seems to cut off randomly allover the place. The links should be a blue of sorts so they stand out better.
Now a positive thing… I like the new navigation bar a lot.
Anyways yeah =P I’ll shut up.
Wow, that is one spanking nice theme! This is epic
I agree that the links should be a different colour (blue, preferably)- they really don’t stand out. Perhaps a few border/break lines should be put in place between each article on the main page, too? The solid tan-gray is a bit off-putting.
Other than that, looks good.
Now this is a very nice look. I think it’s better than the black and white of ‘ol.
This is a surprise, I’ve been checking here almost ritually since Sonic and the Black Knight, never though this place could change (outside of reporting anyway). Then again everything changes and nothing stays the same forever. I like the new layout, though it may take my eyes a while to adjust to the color scheme.
looks great! a little dark on the sides but overall pretty good. perfect timing too, with 2011 being the 20th anniversary of sonic the hedgehog.
Don’t kill me for saying this, but for a second I thought I was on The Sonic Stadium. >.>
Looks nice, though.
I’m tempted to make a Batman joke about the whole “New Look” thing, but it’s a Sonic site and no one will get it so bleh.
Like the new look for the most part.
Maybe I just hate change, but I’m not really a fan of certain elements of this redesign. The dynamic header thing at the top of the page is “stylish” and flashy, but I feel like it detracts from the simplicity of the old design’s navigation. I also have huge beef with people forcing their navigation to the right side of the screen. To some it may seem like an awfully small detail, but I somehow find it to be quite unpleasant to adjust to. I loathed the new Stadium layout for this very reason.
I find it odd that the sidebar is lacking in color/headers/clear separation, especially compared to the rest of the site. At first glance it was hard for me to discern whether those were even actual links. So much plain black text almost makes it seem to blend in with the article on the left. Something to think about?
At this point, maybe I’m just being overly critical, but I wanted to add that I strongly feel that the angle of the Sonic Team emblem in this article’s header image was a poor choice. It skews the image in a very unflattering manner. I like the attempt at updating all your header sets, but this one just looks… awful. Truly awful.
http://i56.tinypic.com/k00ait.jpg
Final note: you may consider adding a border or outline to the “Beyond Blue” text in the site banner. The word Blue especially seems to blend too much into the background image.
EDIT: To clarify with my right hand navigation: the thing that I find most jarring is the whole “image left, article right” situation going on in the main page header. It probably wouldn’t look as good inverted, but it bothers me nonetheless, especially since the newest articles don’t yet appear in the history below.
Looks good, though it would be nice if the ad on the right got aligned correctly…
I can use html?
Well alright. I can quote people properly now.
While I did always appreciate the simple look of the old design, I also have to say you were right: it was getting old. I quite like the new look; it may look rather Sonic Stadium-ish, but that’s not a bad thing. It is, however, not perfect, and still needs a bit of tweaking. For example, the “Blue” in “Beyond Blue” overlaps with the Sonic Colors backdrop on smaller monitors, making it somewhat difficult to read. I suggest giving it a different shade of blue, or perhaps giving it a white or black outline, or something like that. As well, the shade of the light-blue background on the right side of the “news box” on the main page doesn’t look too hot, that should definitely be changed (maybe the background color for non-selected boxes could be white, and the selected box a pale yellow or something? I dunno). And, since I’m writing a comment, I want to mention that comments should have black or very dark gray text, not lightish-gray. It’s annoying how common the “grey text for comments” style is these days. =/
In general though, this is a big improvement. Great job!
I mentioned this before too, but as long as you’re redesigning this site I may as well mention it again: Since you’re so obviously trying to improve the site’s bad reputation from Sega and a lot of the Sonic fanbase, I still think it’s a good idea to collect the “controversial” or overly-subjective posts into something like a “Blog” group, which would stay out of site of the main news at the top of the homepage, forcing you to scroll down a little to see it. Stuff like “The Tangent” would go in there too. I think it could help the image of the site somewhat, while still keeping the “controversial” posts, as many of us still like to read them.
Anyway, nice work. Now to get used to the login box being way the hell down there…
Not bad, a nice update to the old design definitely. The only thing that looks out of place (lol personal opinion time) is the Sonic Colours background on the title banner. Something about it just seems off with the rest of the design.
Honestly, it’s not really that different. Design is definitely dark, I think a lighter approach looked good on your site.
Lovin’ the new style!
I find it incredibly frustrating that I can no longer open the first three articles in separate tabs, due to that ever increasingly annoying active header/banner/whatever the hell it is.
D<
The new design looks really nice
Looks awesome. Very pretty… But it STILL HAS THE WORST IMAGE GALLERY EVER. I mean, why the hell do I have to click on a image, then go to another page, and then click on it again. Just to see a full-sized image?! I mean, make some java gallery, it can’t be too hard.
I like that a background of Sonic Colors was used on the page itself. Tristan has taste. *thumbs up*