Tutorial9 - Tutorial Bliss.

Tutorial9 Redesign

Tutorial9 Redesign

After nearly 100 hours of analyzing, redesigning, testing, and tweaking, I’m proud to say that Tutorial9’s redesign is ready for our viewers.

While there are a few known errors (and undoubtedly some that will surprise us further down the road), things are looking pretty good on our end.  If you notice anything wrong, please share with us here!  Actually, it would be great to get all of your thoughts!

I’m going to catch some shuteye myself, as I’ve barely slept since the beginning of our redesign process.  Before I head out, I want to thank everyone who helped me along the way with ideas, inspiration, insight and moral support.

I needed it!  This was a daunting task!

Again, please share your thoughts and questions in the comments.  I’ll do my best to get back to you ASAP!

36 Comments

  1. Reply to this comment
    Phil

    Looks very nice! The header image is so cool looking with the depth of field effect :)

  2. Reply to this comment
    David Leggett

    @Phil: Appreciate the feedback Phil :) Glad you like that effect - I was sad to see it go during our last redesign. You might see some seasonal changes to it over the course of time!

  3. Reply to this comment
    Faith Rivenbank

    Oooo. Delicious.

  4. Reply to this comment
    Faith Rivenbank

    Search form seems to be a little buggy in IE. Double margin bug? I don’t know…

  5. Reply to this comment
    Joe Casabona

    Looks great! Very inspiring.

  6. Reply to this comment
    David Leggett

    @Faith Rivenbank: Thanks for the heads up Faith. I can’t wait to tackle all the other styling errors I’m bound to stumble into :P

    I think that one is cleared up (at least in IE7). I won’t be bothered to boot up the virtual PC to test IE6 tonight, but I’ll check on it tomorrow hopefully.

    @Joe Casabona: Thanks Joe!

  7. Reply to this comment
    Tyler Bramer

    It’s more amazing than I could have ever imagined David! I know you lost a lot of sleep and free time while you were making this, great job!

  8. Reply to this comment
    Brian

    Can barely read the comment form but other than that it looks good. What would be the chances of seeing a before and after?

  9. Reply to this comment
    Tyler Bramer

    The Advertise on Tutorial9 link leads to a 404 Error Page.

  10. Reply to this comment
    InfinityXero

    You are pwn itself.

    But, what’s up with all these comments? Shouldnt you be asleep??

  11. Reply to this comment
    TheBob

    Very, VERY nice. I was looking forward to this redesign and I’m surprised you got it done so quick-like.

    You do good work, Leggett. And of course, kudos to your crew as well.

  12. Reply to this comment
    Marco

    Awesome job! Great header / footer combination. I do agree with Brian about the comment form, but on the other hand: It suits the template.

    Keep up the good work!

    Greetings,,,

  13. Reply to this comment
    LBrother

    Wow, that’s magnificent!
    Header and Footer are great and the new categories (Basics, Brushes, Design) are very important. The main page looks professional with that - I think it’s Javascript - preview.
    All in all tutorial9 has grown and is prepared for a huge crowd of guests and tutorial-readers (Like PSDTuts). I hope you get the job done and let Tutorial9 become one of the most famous Photoshop sites. I think you’ll do it.

    What I’m missing is another group called “Site Announcements” or something like that. You could put all your non-tutorial-posts in this group. It’s very difficult to find them now by pressing the “older-Button”.
    And on Forum there’s still the old layout, do you think of updating it too?
    Ah yeh, one positive: I think you managed it to offer more space for advertise since this is a very important point today.

    Well done,
    LBrother

  14. Reply to this comment
    RUGRLN

    Nice, really well done, only thing I can sya is maybe make the title for the tutorials more prominent like in bold, different colour, different size. Other thsn that it’s great, looks really cool!

  15. Reply to this comment
    Alex

    nice work! very clean design!

    don’t know if it is intended but the Full RSS feed link on top and the one in the footer point to http://www.tutorial9.net/feed/ whereas you still have the feedburner chicklet, which points to the feedburner address.

  16. Reply to this comment
    Tom Ross

    Well you know that I love this new design David - although going through the site now it’s even better than I could have expected. One problem I’ve encountered is the contact form in Safari:

    http://www.grabup.com/uploads/0ee4752d2ae042c1aca3cc9b16fe634c.png

  17. Reply to this comment
    Nacho

    The H1 bg image is not showing :/

  18. Reply to this comment
    David Leggett

    @Brian: Just updated the Comment Form in hopes of making things a bit easier to read. Definitely want viewers to be able to see what (and where) they’re writing! Thanks!

    @Tyler Bramer: I believe this has been fixed. I had stupidly left the updated Advertise page in private mode. We’ve added some new slots, and have cut prices quite a bit to allow a broader range of advertisers jump in!

    @InfinityXero: Just woke up after a blissful 6 hours or so :)

    @TheBob: Thanks Bob! I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are ready to kill me after how often I bothered them this week for their added input. It really paid off though.

    @LBrother: We will definitely add a section for that! I’m happy to hear that folks are interested in our site announcements!

    @RUGRLN: You mean the titles on the browsing pages, or on the actual Tutorials themselves?

    @Alex: It’s a bit confusing, but that’s actually how it’s setup. Our Feed will redirect to Feedburner - and if Feedburner ever bites the dust (which I doubt it will) we can easily revert back to our direct feed.

    @Tom Ross: Looking into that error, and several others right now! Thanks for the heads up mate :)

  19. Reply to this comment
    David Leggett

    @Nacho: What browser are you using?

  20. Reply to this comment
    Cpt. Crayon

    Really nice work. Tite as a kite.

    Note: the comments form is a bit scattered in safari 3.1.

  21. Reply to this comment
    Asad Rehman

    Looks great
    Easily accessable and Sleek Looking

  22. Reply to this comment
    Image2Markup

    Great redesign man! Love the use the clouds in the header (they are the reason I started following your site :)

  23. Reply to this comment
    liam

    Nice one man, really like the front page a lot more now. Good job!

  24. Reply to this comment
    David Leggett

    @Cpt. Crayon: Thanks Cpt. I’ll investigate the form soon.

    Appreciate all the kind words folks! I’d like to go over some of the bigger changes we’ve made soon - just in case you may have missed them - but I feel like that’s going to be another post of it’s own.

  25. Reply to this comment
    Jana

    Stumble!? Float it!? Dig it!? Well I might understand that Dig It! means if we like the thread and Float it! means the opposite…What is Stumble!???

  26. Reply to this comment
    Jana

    oh and why doesn’t my avatar show?

  27. Reply to this comment
    David Leggett

    @Jana: I’ll try to make a post about all those buttons as well - hadn’t even considered the fact that a lot of people probably don’t understand what those different sites are for. They are all kind of social bookmarking sites that are used to share links, save your favorite links, and increase awareness of special links around the web.

    As for your avatar, that’s another thing I’ll have to explain more thoroughly. On the main site, we use Gravatars so that anyone who visits Tutorial9 will automatically have their avatar come with them.

    On a side note, I think the Safari Comment Form problem is fixed!

  28. Reply to this comment
    adam

    Great work! WOW. Great slider in your front page.

  29. Reply to this comment
    Christinne

    Wow! This looks so much better than the previous one. There were a lot of things that weren’t really working for me. At times it looked like I wasn’t getting any thing that I was looking for. (T~T) Well anyways, the header looks great and has some great depth to it. Great job!

  30. Reply to this comment
    Qbrushes

    Awesome work David! the new layout looks more professional and cleaner., nice to see you making use of the featured post plugin as well.

    keep up the good work.

  31. Reply to this comment
    David Leggett

    @Christinne: Glad you like the new design more! Hope it’s easier to find things now. Aside from making it easier to find things in general around the site, we’ve also beefed up the Search (Just a bit) for more accurate results :)

    @Qbrushes: Thanks Qbrushes! You make some pretty creative use of it as well ;)

  32. Reply to this comment
    Samuel Wat

    Nice! You’ve surprised me once again! Great job David!

  33. Reply to this comment
    Mehmet

    I really love the new design and the layout. Way better then the previous one.

  34. Reply to this comment
    Nikko

    David beautiful redesign. greetings

  35. Reply to this comment
    Josh J

    Great work! I do miss the cobra though. LOL

  36. Reply to this comment
    xero

    Hey,

    I’ve difficulties with the font. It should be Helvetica, right? Well, that’s what your CSS told me ;)
    font-family:Helvetica;

    But, the whole site is displayed in a Serif Font (Times?)

    Looking in my Font dir. I didn’t found Helvetica (pretty shocking, I know), so thats the reason, why I see the Serifes.
    You know what I am point at? I would appreciate some other fonts than just Helvetica.
    font-family:Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;
    How about that?

    It’d help reading the articles! Thanks in advance!

    PS: The rest is just fine! Nice work! I am planning a redesign right now, too, so I know what it takes ;)

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