Design Informer Has Changed

• By Jad Limcaco
• August 1st, 2011
• Events
• 34 Comments

For a little while now, this website has been feeling a bit neglected. Well, that’s all about to change. Design Informer will see some exciting days ahead. Over the last few weeks, through a number of emails and brainstorming chat sessions, the Smashing Magazine team and I have been planning some important changes that we would like to share with you in this post.

A Synopsis Of Design Informer

Humble Beginnings

When I first started Design Informer in October of 2009, I had no idea what the website would turn into. Really, it just started as a website where I could write about design topics that sparked my interest, experiment with my WordPress skills and make a little money on the side. It was a side project that I wanted to try out and see if I could build up.

Growing, Growing, Growing

I never imagined the website would have taken off like it did. The first month alone, I was shocked by the progress of the blog. It didn’t stop there either. The website has kept growing every single month. To date, the website has over 7,000 RSS subscribers and close to 17,000 followers on Twitter. It’s been featured on many other large blogs and websites, and I have had the privilege of being a part of many interviews to discuss the unpredicted growth of the blog.

Design Informer Gets Smashed

Needless to say, the fast growth of the website was too much for me to handle at the time. I was very busy at the time with work and school, and I simply did not have the time to maintain Design Informer. After weeks of not updating the website, I decided to do something about it, and that’s when I put the website up for sale.

When Smashing Magazine heard about it, they quickly put in an offer to purchase the website because they knew the website had real potential and already had a great community behind it. Well, I sold the website to them, and it was finally off my hands.

I continued watching the website every month to see how it was doing, and for a while, it just sat there. Vitaly and his team were too busy with their other big projects, including publishing the Smashing Book 2, that they really didn’t have the time or resources to take Design Informer to the next level. I was a little disappointed to see that something I had built from scratch was slowly deteriorating.

Change Is Coming

A Not-So-New Editor

Fast-forward a few months. I was approached again by Vitaly Friedman of Smashing Magazine. He asked if I would be interested in being the Editor of Design Informer. After a few days of pondering, I decided that this was too great an opportunity to pass up, so I took him up on the offer. I figured that with the help and experience of Smashing Magazine, we could really grow Design Informer and make a difference in the community.

After a few more emails between the two of us and a Skype session, we both agreed that we needed to push Design Informer to the next level, and the only way to do that would be to implement some changes.

A New Direction

Yes, you read that heading correctly: Design Informer has a new direction. You may be asking, “If the website is doing so well, why are you changing its direction?” Allow me to explain.

We (i.e. the Smashing Magazine team and I) want to improve the Web design community, and we have made that our goal here at Design Informer. Let me be honest with you. When I owned the website, my main goal was just to grow Design Informer. I did everything I could to achieve that, and I can say that it worked. Well, now that is no longer our goal. When Vitaly and I Skyped last week, we agreed to make Design Informer a hub for thoughtful and professional Web design articles, as well as meaningful design discussions. We will also explore the history of design and its influence on professionals today.

We plan to publish articles about the industry and about skills, choices and approaches related to design. We want designers to think about their decisions, pose questions and ask for opinions. Thus, the website won’t be focused on particular topics such as usability or programming; rather, it will discuss design as a philosophy and a craft, and explore design in a more general sense.

Sure, we’ll still publish some inspiration and current trends from the design community, but we don’t want to just show these things without addressing the decisions and ideas that went into them.

Most design articles have too much how and not enough why. We’re trying to change that.

By the way, we need your help, too. If you’re interested in writing an article for Design Informer, we would love for you to contribute! Shoot me an email at jad.limcaco [at] smashingmagazine.com and I’ll be glad to hear your ideas.

A New Section

You’ll notice in the sidebar that I’ve added a new section called Recent Notes. This will likely be the most frequently updated section of the website. It will be just quick thoughts and interesting things from around the design community that I want to share. If you’re interested in sharing your valuable opinion, then let me know and I’ll set you up to write in the Notes section as well.

A Familiar Design

While we could have accompanied these big changes with a redesign of the website, we feel that the current design and layout work well for our goals. We did make a few minor design changes here and there. You’ll notice we removed the large footer because we didn’t really see the need for it. Also, we’ve refined the Design Informer mascot in different areas. We’re not done yet; we’ll gradually work on other things around the website, because we want to consistently improve and make Design Informer the best it can be.

So, what do you think of all these changes to Design Informer? What are some design topics you’d like us to write about? Are there certain Web design philosophies or techniques that you’d like to discuss? Please let us know in the comments. Also, please leave feedback about what you like or don’t like about Design Informer’s design and what you would change. Your views and opinions are important to us, and we would love to hear from you!

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