Welcome to Mumbrella’s new look. Please excuse the eight year delay
Mumbrella has finally joined the 21st century with the first redesign in the site’s history. Founder and content director Tim Burrowes explains the long journey to Mumbrella’s new look.
Nearly eight years ago, shortly before I published Mumbrella’s first post, I made a slight miscalculation.
“Let’s get it launched, then in a couple of weeks, I’ll ask a mate in a design agency to do us a proper logo,” I told my business partner Martin Lane.
“For now, I’ll knock something up in Word.”
So I did.
Pretty self-indulgent – it’s like a never ending role of credits. Just get on with it.
You’re not familiar with the author, are you? 😉
You do realise that it’s not mandatory reading, right?
Sorry, this nested as a reply to the wrong comment!
so I would click on that one.
@Richard Dirth spoken like [Edited by Mumbrella], with a Dirth of good will.
Congratulations on the new look. Already miss the reader comments listing on the right hand side of the page; that was a key element for me. Any chance of retaining something similar? Apart from that, site looks great and logo is a big improvement.
If experience serves me correctly, you need to basically ignore the barrage of feedback (generally negative) you will get as people adjust to the new layout. A big redesign tests the mettle of any publisher!
Looks great and now the design matches the content in terms of strength.
I use Mumbrella every day and as bad as the old design was it was familiar. I was initially apprehensive but I’ve only looked at it on mobile so far and it’s a massive improvement. Looking forward to seeing the desktop version. Welcome to 2016 Mumbrella.
I love the new redesign. Visually it looks great, the UX is pretty good. Nice.
BUT… the big page takeover banners are everything that is wrong with digital advertising. Large, obnoxious and ugly as hell. What happened to smart marketing, native advertising, branded content?
These types of ads are the reason people are installing ad-blockers in droves and driving down ad dollars.
Disappointing.
An inspired logo design, Vanessa!
Great new look. Well done.
I access your content via Facebook. So long as your thumbnail doesn’t look like Mamamia I can continue to respect your headlines without the eye roll.
Great logo, and nice redesign
But the redesign drowns in an ad that takes up at least 50%(!) of the screen. Less is more
Congrats, Tim. As always, good to get honest insight into how you’ve done things. Its long overdue, but you succeeded in spite of the previous awful design – maybe now you’ll succeed in part because of the improved one.
Just one point: massive red tower ads were a bit of an eyestrain… made it pretty stressful reading a long-form article. Might have to find a balance there between advertiser attention and readers’ eyesight!
Well done – not before time
looks great but do please bring back the various comment parts from the right hand side like most commented, most recent etc plzzzzz
Looks great Tim. Congrats on the upgrade!
Always love a re-design – but I must say your Word effort was pretty awesome to stand this test of time!
New look?
Looks good. The auto-run video bullshit ads on other industry sites are way more irritating.
Just as a side note, before anyone suggests doing so, if you work in this industry and use an ad-blocker you are a fucking idiot (for using an ad-blocker).
Hi — site is nice enough (although not as easy to scan as the old, blog style). But I think you’ve missed a trick by losing the “latest comments” and “most discussed” modules that used to sit in the RHC. Very often, the comments were the most instructive/entertaining content on the site and something I always looked out for….
It will be interesting for you to compare the average amount of comments on this new look v the old. Without the summary on the right I am going to assume they will go down = engagement / interaction could decline. (On the home page when I look at the summary articles, there isn’t a number next to each (perhaps bottom right), indicating how many comments each article has obtained – that will help too.
I agree with the ad’s all over the page – this is what is wrong with digital advertising – (I am looking from a desk top perspective.)
Other that that, this looks good and good luck with it!
(It was still easy enough to post this comment…) 🙂
Looking from a mobile it the ads are less offensive than desktop. I am finding the site super fast. I am still lost however with the discussion. I live going back to see who has commented and see what articles are trending on Mumbrella. If something can be done to signpost the most commented and latest articles, similar to old site: I will engage as much, or from mobile; more! Nice job guys!!
Better if logo was circular and variation on the M.
Congrats team! Oddly I was reading the site yesterday and literally thought ‘I love how it still looks the same’. Like visiting your childhood home!
As you say long overdue. Before I left in June 2014 I was telling clients within 6 months!! Mumbrella does things it’s own way in its own time, what continues to make it the most authentic voice.
Again congrats!
Congratulations Mumbrella! Should you change the flavicon? I’ve still got the old black and white umbrella.
I always like to see the number of comments next the article -it helps me decide whether to read it or not.
Best of luck with the new site
These new Pizza Shapes are awful!
I’m too scared to buy a packet at the supermarket for fear of being chased with clubs and fire by angry Surry Hills villagers.
First….really like the new logo.
Second….interesting to watch the reviewer become the reviewed. Typically there is some value in every opinion, some more than others.
Third….as you wade through the initial response take inspiration from a good old fashioned Theodore Roosevelt quote…“so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Fourth….Change, Count, Repeat
Enjoy the journey
JK
I tried looking for this article today (Wed) on Mumbrella and couldn’t? I performed a variety of Google searches and eventually found it using the following string:
new look, “by Tim Burrowes”
On the old site I think that this article would have had far more comments by now, again because people can see which articles are trending / being added. The right hand nav was functional. This site has a lot of form and some of the function is missing from the old one – I believe.
On a mobile it is very fast, which is what you want. I would look at the nav and get that a little more reined in. Use science and test away and it will improve I am sure.
10 cents over.
Good luck and keep up the great work!
I really liked the old site layout, but I understand the change. However as some have mentioned above, please display the Recently Commented / Most Commented lists and the Number of comments on an article. The comments can make the articles far more engaging.
I too favour the old design. But I’m a huge reddit fan. I like to look at all the story headlines fast. And this new design allocates a huge amount of realestate per story.
Well, given what you guys have achieved as a small business I’d say your priorities were probably in order! Congrats on the new look.
BK
++The Good
Awesome logo
Works at mobile
Ad product that commercial can actually sell (important internally no doubt)
Quartz-like ‘next article’ scroll
++The Bad
Too much information density stripped from homepage, it was the old-school information density that appealed (rookie mistake to rip it back, Homepage is still important declaration of voice, brand & as user compass – even as it’s traffic gateway role diminishes – qz.com famously launched with none and then returned the homepage)
Too many community signals stripped out, especially homepage (no evidence community lives here anymore)
Should have been brave enough to kill wordpress ‘sidebar’ in the article template.
++The Ugly
Someone please put a frequency cap on this violent red advertiser skin!
Took eight years to read that article. Normally your editorial judgement is good, but no one really cares about your re-design process.
Hi There,
I like the modern facelift of the website, everything looks more tidy and the typography is very appealing.
What I miss is: Where do I find the daily ratings unless there are not offered on the front page? When I search for “Ratings”, the search result is anything else than satisfactory.
Can I go back in time/backwards to search for daily ratings? Sorry, but I am lost here… 🙁
Bettina
For me I think this is a massive missed opportunity for a few reasons.
The first reason is that at its core Mumbrella worked best when there was conversation, the advertising industry loves nothing more than naval gazing (much of the time anonymously!) The comments section often taking on a mixture of hate, love and spite on big topics. At its core comments from the industry drove viewership to the site. Its my opinion the new design doesn’t lend itself to engaging in conversation.
My second point is the fonts, click boxes and advertising is far too big. The site looks like it was optimised for 70 year old men who want to use their computer without their reading glasses.
You have traded usability, readability and discovery for great big ads. You will still outstrip your rivals on numbers for now. But that lead will shrink significantly, as any redesign usually borks ‘the algorithm’ – and your numbers will dwindle. Remember what you are, not what you want to be sold as.
Not a fan personally. Too much going on.
I much preferred the old design where it was easy to scroll through the homepage, get to the end and keep going. Now I feel like I’m drowning in stuff. Strip back some of the noise and make the comments more prominent.