Home Site Info A new look for the website

A new look for the website

by Matt Smith

Bgb1415PostIf you’ve not found this post via a link on Twitter, you’ve probably just had a bit of a surprise.

Yes, it all looks a bit different, doesn’t it?

It’s been a while since I gave the website a new look and this one has been in the making for a few months. The dawn of the offseason was a good time to dedicate some hours to finalize it all as a distraction from the relative lack of baseball games to enjoy.

All 2,250+ posts from March 2006 onwards are still here, just with a new lick of digital paint. The formatting on some of the older posts may not be perfect, but I hope you’ll forgive me for not going through every single post from the archive. That would have been a big project in itself - I suspect we’re past the 1 million word mark combined over all the posts, which took me back a bit when I worked it out -  and the new design is primarily about moving forward.

The main change from a navigating point of view is that the home page is more of a designed offering, linking to recent posts and highlighting a few featured articles, rather than immediately taking you to lots of posts. More people tend to come to the site direct to a specific post via a link or search rather than hit the homepage and browse about, so immediately linking through to all the posts didn’t seem so important and not doing so means those who do visit the home page get a more tailored view.

The posts can still be found easily by clicking on the ‘All posts’ link on the navigation menu, or choose the relevant sub-category if you’re particularly interested in MLB, British Baseball or another available option.

The new site design is also intended to fit the current publishing routine. In years past there has been a variety of writers on the site and it’s now developed to being written mainly by myself, with some fantasy baseball offerings from Mark George and the odd piece of baseball history from Joe Gray courtesy of his Project Cobb press releases.

That’s fine with me, it’s so easy now to put together a good-looking blog that most people want to start and stick to their own place to follow their own muse however they wish. Still, if you’d like to join in, even just on an occasional guest basis, then please use the Get in Contact page to drop me a line.

The final point from a design perspective is that my trusty old BGB logo has been replaced by a simpler and, hopefully, quite stylish new logo that ties in with the colour scheme and overall look of the new site (the old logo is still on the Baseball Basics for Brits articles and I’ll update those at some point over the offseason).

I hope you like the new look and please let me know if you find any glaring bugs along the way.

Thanks for your continuing support of the website.

Cheers

Matt

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6 comments

John Walmsley November 16, 2014 - 6:19 am

I really like the new look Matt. It’s very fresh and a great read too.

Reply
Matt Smith November 16, 2014 - 9:06 am

Thanks John, glad you like it.

Matt

Reply
Roly November 19, 2014 - 8:28 pm

Love the new site Matt, first baseball site I go to each morning. I’ve recently renewed my love of the game, having taken 18 months or so away from it, so loving the site all over again.

Reply
Matt Smith November 19, 2014 - 8:49 pm

Thanks Roly, could to read you’ve got the baseball bug back!

Reply
Joe Gray November 24, 2014 - 3:37 pm

Hi Matt,

Wonderful job on the new look.

Great stuff.

Joe

Reply
Matt Smith November 24, 2014 - 8:20 pm

Cheers Joe, much appreciated.

Matt

Reply

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