There’s always a part in a designer’s life where they come to the sense that a new redesign is in store for them. What does it take to redesign? Are you simply going to code a new site, replace graphics, or add new functions or features? Recently I’ve seen a lot of “redesign” and to me it’s probably the easiest thing to do than designing from scratch.
The main purpose of a redesign is to be hip, or be “trendy”. If you see your competitors with new looking sites that are very visual and has a lot of functions, then surely in this generation, people are most likely going to view that site. And so, people/companies feel the need to update themselves so they can be in competition with everyone in addition to making their new site fit their brand and style as well as attending to their audience.
Sometimes people redesign in order to include a new addition to their community. If you run a ice cream store that recently acquired a cookie company, then most likely you want your site updated to match your new company.
Redesigning is a great thing to do to put a new life on an old site and give yourself a new image as well as giving your audience something to stare at.
What’s the use in designing when you can simply replace and reuse some old content, or old framework. It’s much easier and faster to redesign over something than to completely start from scratch. With this in mind, you already know what works, what doesn’t, what fits, what’s going to be a pain to code, and finally, you’ll know if it looks good since you can use the old site as a base.
As you may have seen on this site, there isn’t anything new other than a new background, the navigation moved down, and some shadows here and there. It’s the same site structure, but completely different look. Most people find it hard to design something new when in reality they can look at it in a different perspective and think of it as a redesign.
The magic behind redesigning is the fact that you should keep the coding in mind at all times. When redesigning, you want to imagine how it’ll replace the code. Do they need to add something complicated, or can the extra pictures be just an extra div? As a designer and developer, it’s very easy for me to know and estimate how easy it is to code the new design and how complicated it’ll be because I’ve built the original base.
When a designer tries to redesign, sometimes they don’t think about things like existing content, coding structure, etc… When they are told to redesign, they are opted to completely redesign it in order to surprise and give a whole new look. Pretty much a complete makeover. This leads to problems as it extends the coding process to a much longer period of time and not to mention a few graphical problems that may not be easy to fix with coding and so the redesigning process may have to be fixed.
Let’s look at this wonderful transition.
Soshified is a community forum based off a Korean female group called So Nyuh Shi Dae or SNSD for short. Originally, they’re design was simple at first. I can’t exactly remember what it was, however, the main thing, is they built it off from Invisionboard’s main framework which probably looks similar to this:
And their new redesign looks like:
Definitely a lot of features added than the normal look. Again, I’m not sure of their original layout so those features were probably already made, and they simply redesigned over it. From a normal person’s perspective, I’d think this was a whole new site and not an Invision board. And so remember, platforms are platforms. They run the site, but definitely not all looks the same. They may be structurally designed and layout the same, but the tip to redesigning are colors, placement, typography, and details.
What’s the verdict?
Was this completely coded from scratch and had a lot of problems, or was it a simply redesign pertaining to a few guidelines. That mystery will always be held by the designers and developer themselves.
And so designers/developers aren’t just designers and developers. The major talent that I believe we have is the skill to make an impression on the web whether it be a simple thing or a complicated thing. Not many people will know whether we took 5 minutes to do it or 5 hours to do it. In the end, it’s the end product that matters, and if it’s what people like, then our goal has been reached.
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You got spammed with my tweets didn’t you. Their new design is really nice, though slow the first few days, but it’s okay now. Their previous design didn’t contain those features. The header only had an image, with 2 avatar-like button below with some links/icons, and their footer only had a shoutbox. So no, they didn’t just replaced things. It probably took them over 24 hours to just get the new design up. I would know because I actually waited everystep of the way.
PS: a nice feature is that the header changes according to the time of the day if you haven’t noticed.
Didn’t really get spammed, thought it was a nice change with all the spamming I get from tutorials on web design. Reminds me to unfollow certain people for that.
Ah yeah, I’ve noticed the header as well, from their teaser trailer of their the new design.
Most definitely it probably took over 24 hours. My redesign took days, granted I didn’t spend more than 2-3 hours on each one.
Another good feature of the site is that it’s fluid in width. I’m not sure if that’s the standard in a forum design, but it’s kind of fun seeing the SNSD members move along with the browser width.