Perhaps you’ve noticed, but things are a little cleaner around here today. A little brighter, and, hopefully, a little easier to navigate. That’s because our site has a brand new haircut. We think it’s looking pretty good.
A huge thank you to Rumpus Designer extraordinaire Nancy Smith, who poured hours and hours (and hours and hours and let’s just say days) of work into envisioning the site you see before you. And to our one-man Rumpus Tech Team, Jesse Keyes, who took Nancy’s vision and coded it into internet reality.
Now there are still some fixes to be made and corners to be tidied, but we’re about 90% there. So it’s as good a time as any to ask the most important question of the day: What do you think, Rumpus Readers?
Let us know in the comments below. And a huge thank you, as always, to all of you for being a part of The Rumpus.
Update: Also, a huge thank you to artist Ian Huebert, who designed the old Rumpus logo (featuring Rumpy himself), and then insisted on making our snazzy new one (he actually completed our “new” logo over a year and a half ago, but we like to take our time with things).
33 responses
Looks classy as Hell.
Loving the new logo, the streamlined design makes it incredibly easy to navigate through all of the excellent content. Bravo!
Looks fabulous.
Looks good. Clean and tidy and easy to move around. Well played.
I’m afraid to note I’m one for the former, cluttered, beautiful, unique ‘Rumpus’; which was very Rumpus, was very energetic, charming, exciting. The new design feels like over-pressed hotel linens.
One needs to scroll down forever just to get a sense of the full Rumpus-blast. (It gets boring half way.) Your readers, like you, seek constant stimulation. A one and a half column scroll-down List is not cutting it. Bring sexy back! (No offense to the lovely designers. This exact lay out would be brilliant for many other publications.)
Nice …ðŸ‘<—-should be a little thumbs up pic …
Looks super nice.
i miss rumpy. the new website is sleek but not as fun.
I’m sad. I like the old logo a lot. It is appropriately old-school, not ham-handedly retro. And it’s charming. And odd. And unlike anything else around. The new one…well, it’s fine, but is The Rumpus just “fine”? The new site design looks good though, and seems to work nicely. Change is good.
and how do we locate archives of rumpusreadersreport? or at all? i’m in mourning, but nothing stays the same.
Hi Betsy,
All the content is still there, just waiting to be poured over and re-read. You can search for anything you want (search bar is still in its same old place, upper right hand corner on the main page).
Check it:
https://therumpus.net/?s=%22Rumpus+readers+report%22
Hooray!
-Isaac
don’t mind new design direction of the website, but why kill such a great logo in favor of one that lacks any character (and i don’t mean rumpy) at all? the logo went from cool and unique to uber-boring corporate. which is cool if you are an uber-boring corporation. i laughed aloud while first viewing the new logo. the random quote underneath was “the rumpus: what could possibly go wrong?” perhaps just add a parenthetical ‘see above.’
hi, isaac. but how would someone find rumpusreadersreport who has not heard of it? it’s one of the few ways readers get to participate in the website that isn’t just reading columns and commenting at the bottom of each one. i enjoy reading the various ways in which people interpret the writing topics/prompts; some are quite good. there should be an easier way to get to it, especially for someone who has never seen it and wouldn’t know to type anything in the search bar.
HEART!!!!!!!!
I’m digging everything about this except the new logo. It’s a good logo, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not as good as the old one. Besides that, I’m in love.
Wow.
Looks great – easier to navigate than before and more aesthetically pleasing.
Hey guys. It’s much easier to get around and very slick.
I echo thoughts on the logo and loss of character though. Still, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Great work.
Love it but wish I’d known about the big lingerie photo before I opened the page at work. Yikes!
Looks great. Three thoughts:
– Missing the old logo because it was unique/memorable.
– You have so much content that a three-column homepage look might work better–for some reason my brain is tuning out your homepage right column now.
-Previous design’s article font was uglier but more readable (because it was larger and serif). It’s impossible to please everyone with fonts, though. Maybe add the option to adjust the size?
I love The Rumpus but I’m not liking the new set up at all. Sorry guys.
can the rumpy fellow come back? i don’t mean this as a criticism, but i did like seeing him when i would come to the site. he was very welcoming. can he be in a corner drinking a beer or something, having a good time in his retirement? if not, i fully support and admire what you’ve done, and i appreciate and thank you for your democratic openness to feedback.
Hey ya’ll!
The redesign looks good. The lady in lingerie that greeted me when I logged in isn’t so bad, either, but with the new design, the photo would have been hard to explain to someone looking over my shoulder….
The layout reminds me of something. Maybe it reminds me of tumblr. The new logo looks like an old O’Neill ad. They make good wetsuits. I think I preferred the old design simply because it had the cluttered look of a magazine. I also really loved the left side extras. Where did the left side go? I guess it just looks more like everything else (or maybe I just mean HTML Giant, more like that), which I’m kinda not digging. But as long as the shit is not substituted, well, I guess I don’t really care too much what it looks like.
Betsy, I don’t really understand your question. There’s still a Reader’s Report on the frontpage right now. But there isn’t always one. Was the same with our old site too. Content always cycles through. Don’t worry, RRs will still be around. Again, no content has changed.
Andrew, the left side extras are still there, my man. They’re just on the right hand side now. Book reviews are now at the bottom of the page (we’re still playing with the length of the page, too)
As to the new logo, as stated above it was created by the same artist (Ian Huebert) who made Rumpy (who you can still find in Morning Coffees, and who knows where he might pop up next)… it’s also tattooed on Stephen and I’s bodies forever, so… you know, don’t be too harsh 😀
Rumpus, Tattoos: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5306/5555434102_6d99eb7e80.jpg (Blood in, blood out)
Thank you all so much(!!!!) for all this feedback. We really appreciate it, and appreciate YOU!
We love you back.
-Isaac
Man, that Rumpy cover-up is gonna have to be big, once you realize that we’re right and the old logo was better.
Ha!
I like the layout a lot! It works just like my head: organized chaos. That is a compliment, I promise. I miss Rumpy, but now I’m thinking I might have him tattooed on me instead of complaining about his absence.
Amazing. So much easier to navigate and loads a lot faster. And really good looking. Thank you for redesigning.
I think the new site looks wonderful & is easier to navigate. I didn’t like the old logo all that much, so I don’t miss it at all, but the new logo is a little boxy. maybe a work in progress. Super job by all.
I also miss the old logo. It reminds me of an old high school yearbook cover and believe me, those were not pleasant memories.I can’t get a tatoo: it’s against my religion, so please please please bring Rumpy back!
Oh, I so appreciate the effort. It’s sweet, but I kinda liked the old version. This one is “too” slick. Also agree with the comments above: the new logo is fine, but I really liked the old one…. could ya bring it back? It doesn’t matter much – I’m a fan of the content …. but it’s nice when a site feels like home
This is an aging thread now, I guess, but after giving it a little time, I like the redesign less an less. I agree with the comment above that the old layout had the charm of a print magazine. The new layout looks too much like so many other websites. That’s fine, I suppose, if your goal is to grab onto every trend and innovation in the blogosphere, but I took the site’s original layout as a companion to its policy of eschewing pop culture.
I’m basically saying the new site looks too corporate and bandwagony, which might be hypocritical because my other (corprate sounding) criticism is that it’s too early for The Rumpus to start playing around with its brand. If the site redesign was part of a strategy to bring in more people, I’m not sure the visual elements were the biggest obstacle.
The old design was unique, which is crucial to a brand.
Though not related to design, my suggestion for making The Rumpus more popular would be this: instead of fielding submissions, ask all of the amazingly talented contributors The Rumpus has to collaborate on a theme each week or month. “Roxanne Gay, Steve Almond, and _______, etc. weigh in on a particular subject.” Make it a subject that’s totally irrelevant to the garbage that’s reblogged everywhere else! What if Rumpus regulars all weighed in on fish tanks? Wouldn’t that be awesome?? Roxane Gay using her experience with fish tanks as a prism throug which to examine gender and race. Steve Almond on politics through the prism of fish tanks. A guest column on self transformation through aquarium ownership. It would be beautiful! Next week, muscle cars – same thing! Not only would it be a unique and quirky way to frame a week’s worth of reading matter, but you can use any subject under the sun to talk about life, art, and literature. Just sayin’.
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