6 Months of Freelance and a New Design is Here!
Collis Ta'eedIn a few days FreelanceSwitch turns 6 months old! In that time we’ve managed to climb all the way up to be the 200th most popular blog according to Technorati, and built the biggest and best freelance community around (in my shamelessly biased opinion). So what better way to celebrate than by refreshing the FreelanceSwitch design? And so we give you Freelance 2.0 
Take a look around, I hope everyone likes the new design. I’ve been working on it for some time and am a little nervous about it. Redesigning popular sites inevitably gets a mixed response I’ve found (unless the old design was awful, which I’d like to think in this case is not true!) In case you’ve already forgotten it, here’s a screenshot of the old design.
Better Archives, Author Profiles, Explore Pages, Wallpapers and More
You’ll quickly notice that we’ve added lots of new stuff to the design and equally importantly made everything a bit neater and tidier. The old design was actually one I originally put together in a few hours one morning when I was avoiding my “real work”. It evolved quite a bit, but the site outgrew the design pretty quickly and it started looking a little shabby. So onwards and upwards to this new, organised version, hopefully it’ll last a little longer because redesigning turned out to be an awful lot of work!
Ironing out Crinkles
For the next few hours I’ll be ironing out some crinkles in the design, so you may see a few bits of weirdness, feel free to report anything particularly broken in the comments and I’ll make sure they all get taken care of.
Coming Soons - Podcasts, Hired Gun and LinksGuy
There are a few coming soon’s in the new design, including Podcasts which will be arriving later this week (the first one has been recorded already by Cyan, John, Dickie and Kristen), Hired Gun which I’ve been writing for months now and in the Resources section we have a new site we’ll be launching soon called LinksGuy.
Job Board
You’ll notice that the job board is still the old job board, but this won’t last for long because our fearless coder Mathias is on the job kicking the job board into shape for it’s second release.
We’re going to be changing the way the board works to a subscriber model, where jobs are still free to post, and browse, but to get application details for a job will require a monthly subscription of a few dollars. This will help us make some money out of the board without losing the advertisers and mean that jobs get fewer, but more interested applicants. Lately we’ve started getting recruitment agencies, proper companies and even other job boards “applying”!
So you’ll see jobs.freelanceswitch 2.0 in the next couple of weeks as well.
Enjoy
So that’s it from me, enjoy the design, happy 6 months to FreelanceSwitch, and as always thanks for making this site such a great place! Viva la Freelance!
Andrew Nesbitt
October 2nd, 2007
Love the new design, great work
riki
October 2nd, 2007
Looks the same to me, what’s changed?
Tam Denholm
October 2nd, 2007
I’m really digging the new design. The old one was nice but as you mentioned, the site itself outgrew the design. This is far better, its neater and it also seems less busy too.
Great Job.
Dor Dan
October 2nd, 2007
Wow! Impressive! Really good job on the design and good luck!
Naomi
October 2nd, 2007
I think this one is more readable and cleaner, although I really liked the last one too. I find the font size slightly small though. I thought you guys were going to get new illustrations too. Did you decide to keep these ones after all? Maybe they have become synonymous with this site now anyway.
lornadoone
October 2nd, 2007
Congrats on the success and the upgrade. The site looks great. I’m looking forward to taking more time to really poke around and see what’s going on behind the sleek new exterior.
Hyder
October 2nd, 2007
Very subtle changes, not too much of a departure from the old one. But yet different enough to make things more streamlined.
Great job!
Jerusalem Joe
October 2nd, 2007
Excellent new design.Much clearer and convenient. I love it.
Tibor
October 2nd, 2007
I might not be the ideal target audiance of Freelanceswitch, since I read the site from a corporate environment using Internet Explorer 6. With this version of Explorer the new design sucks.
The whitiesh backround and the sidebar ads are at the bottom of all the content.
Cyan
October 2nd, 2007
Ah yes, we did indeed decide to stick to the old illustrations. The new character is now being used on LinksGuy - http://www.linksguy.com - after a lot of discussion we decided that people had gotten used to the stock illustrations, so we kept ‘em!
Aaron
October 2nd, 2007
Very Nice!
Travis
October 2nd, 2007
Looks fantastic Collis. Great job at carrying the consistency across your network. Can’t wait to see it when all is said and done.
Phyo
October 2nd, 2007
Very neat new design. I love it.
Just one thing on this page http://freelanceswitch.com/start/naming-your-freelancing-business-to-personalize-or-not-with-a-poll/ . There are 3 buttons (Vote Now) and they are out of the boundary. I am not sure if it was like that before. Just found out today.
Again, Nice job in the new design!
MichaelM
October 2nd, 2007
As Tibor said… This design totally collapses in IE
Not that I’m using it of course, but majority of people do…
Sanjeev
October 2nd, 2007
absolutely love it!
Margarida
October 2nd, 2007
Very good.
More user friendly and organized.
Andrew Fleming
October 2nd, 2007
Keeping the old illustrations was a good idea I think… gotta have that little bit of branding
I dig the new design - I like how its ’same’ enough to feel familiar, but just enough changes to make it a real improvement.
The only problem I foresee is that the content in the sidebar –> goes a really, really long way down the page… don’t have any suggestions on improving it though, perhaps putting the ‘ad breaks’ back to the right in a third column again? They will only continue pushing the sidebar farther and farther down.
Thanks for the fantastic blog/webzine/self-help/you’re awesome site!
Drew
maria
October 2nd, 2007
Fabulous! Happy six months!
Collis Ta'eed
October 2nd, 2007
Thanks guys!!
@phyo: Thanks for picking up on that, strange, the new design seems to be interfering with the Polldaddy Javascript
I’ll figure out why
@tibor: Ah yes unfortunately I don’t actually have IE6 anymore and have stopped testing for it a few months back. I live in the hope that everyone will magically migrate to Firefox/IE7
Marcus Nelson
October 2nd, 2007
The design looks really good - added features and elements without abandoning the original concept entirely. I really like the fact you didn’t leave the little people graphics - my wife adores them!
Solid effort - thank you for your hard work and attention to detail.
Fubiz
October 2nd, 2007
Amazing work guys !
Jeff Mackey
October 2nd, 2007
The new design is great! As is the content of this site - I love it. Keep up the good work.
Best,
Jeff
Israel
October 2nd, 2007
I love the new look. I’m always one for big buttons! They are much easier to use.
Good job.
Andrew
October 2nd, 2007
Awesome job! I absolutely love it! Very nice job Collis and team.
Philip Wallage
October 2nd, 2007
Awesome job on the redesign guys.
Improved readability and just looks damn sexy if you ask me!
Keep up the good work (and articles).
Greetings from Holland.
Bradley Woods
October 2nd, 2007
Congrats on your success. Love the new look! Keep the great content coming
Ryan
October 2nd, 2007
“Honey put your nice dress on, we’re going out tonight!”
(That’s what this new design makes me think of.)
The only issue I see echoes that of Andrew Fleming. It seems like there is a lot of stuff now in the sidebar…lots going on…it’s busy. It all seems useful so I’m not sure what could be removed. I’ll bet though, that if you’re running Mint or Google Analytics, you could observe over the next weeks what gets clicked on and what doesn’t. Then you’ll be able to decide if there are things that should be removed/relocated. Especially the things that used to get clicked but don’t now.
Jan
October 2nd, 2007
Phyo accidentially shows a bug of the new design
shockboogiedesign
October 2nd, 2007
Awesome!!!:)
Rene
October 2nd, 2007
Yeah ! Way cleaner guys. Especialy the right column…
ASJ
October 2nd, 2007
@ Collis Ta’eed
The site design looks good. I am glad to see you stuck with a similar design but made it more expandable and a little cleaner.
You mentioned that you don’t have IE6 any more. There is a program called Multiple IE’s - http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE - that lets you install multiple versions of IE on your computer. It is awesome for testing purposes. I have IE 5.5, 6.0 and 7.0 installed for testing.
Thought you might enjoy it.
Warren Noronha
October 2nd, 2007
The new website is simply awesome. All we need now is more Freelance Freedom comics
Warren Noronha
Kyle Daigle
October 2nd, 2007
I really love the new design. I think its a lot cleaner, I can seemingly read things easier, and I’m sure the advertisers will like this format more too. Ironically, I find the right column even less obtrusive here as well.
Travis
October 2nd, 2007
One suggestion: consider charging to list a job, not to apply for it. I think freelancers will be very hesitant to pay for a monthly subscription in the hope that a job will be posted that fits them.
Adam
October 2nd, 2007
Nice work on the new design. I’m kind of curious about this decision, though:
“@tibor: Ah yes unfortunately I don’t actually have IE6 anymore and have stopped testing for it a few months back. I live in the hope that everyone will magically migrate to Firefox/IE7 :-)”
What is your % of IE6 users? I’m still seeing about 20% of users on IE6 on my site, and W3 is reporting a 37% rate for July 2007. As a web designer, I have dreams of ignoring IE6 and I’d like to know how you came to that decision.
Ken Jazzy
October 2nd, 2007
looks great. yesterday was my first visit to site and i thought it was awsome! i bookmarked it and decided to comeback everyday. Yesterday i thought it looked really nice and today i think it looks colossal!
daniel
October 2nd, 2007
Looks great. Congrat’s. #200 in 6 months is nothing to sneeze at.
Rob Enslin
October 2nd, 2007
Congratulations! I like the way you’ve redesigned the site without any dramatic changes - subtle implementation so not to shock your existing users.
It’s still one of the only newsletters I receive that I religiously read and pay attention to.
RONICAdesign
October 2nd, 2007
Love the new layout - I’m looking forward to the Podcast!
Limitless
October 2nd, 2007
Hi! I think the new design is really great! Good work, BTW have you considered releasign a WordPress theme “similar” to this one? I think it would be great, really, the design and layout are awesome, and I think it’d become one of the most popular themes around ,)
Please consider the idea.
Limitless | StylishLabs
Rajesh Shakya
October 2nd, 2007
Congratulations! New design looks great.
Keep up the good job.
Rajesh Shakya
http://www.rajeshshakya.com
Helping technopreneurs to excel and lead their life!
patrik
October 2nd, 2007
Like it, well done
Mathias
October 2nd, 2007
I’m gonna put “Fearless Coder” on my business card
Seriously, design looks great guys!
Andrei Potorac
October 2nd, 2007
Nice design! Wondering if you’ll change it each 6 months, hehe
Dustin Brewer
October 2nd, 2007
I like the new design it seems much cleaner and better organized. Thats not to say that the old design had anything wrong with it… this one is just better.
Dustin Brewer
October 2nd, 2007
Although now that I post a comment, the wrapping name for the comment post is a little distracting.
Mark Forrester
October 2nd, 2007
Love the new design guys. The attention to detail is awesome. A bit of a pity about the IE6 bugs, but other than that I cannot say anything bad about the design.
Michelle
October 2nd, 2007
I’m still on IE6 at work so it’s pretty awful. I can view it in FF on my laptop and it looks great.
You don’t think it’s a little early to be dropping support for IE6?
Terry Griffin
October 2nd, 2007
Collis,
Thanks for the redesign! As a blogger, I’ve learned a lot from watching you guys grow this site, and as a designer I really admire FreelanceSwitch and its great content. Keep up the good work!
Terry
milo
October 2nd, 2007
There is a site called browsershots, as a freelance resource you should’ve known that.
Timo
October 2nd, 2007
Once again, nice job on the redesign!
I realise the sidebar now looks very busy because all the boxed sections are of the same colour. Maybe if the Ad Break sections are of a different background colour might help things? I dunno, it’s just me from a ‘feel’ perspective.
I agree with Limitless. Having a Wordpress theme similar to this one will be quite cool. I know I will want one :-p. I like how you have a unique style in all your sites (Psdtuts, linksguy). Have a great day, mate!
Paul M.
October 2nd, 2007
Great design but is broken under IE6. Good decision to make the header smaller. The previous one was to high.
marin
October 2nd, 2007
better than before, good work.
collis
October 2nd, 2007
Ah yes for everyone who asked, the browser breakdown over the last month is:
63% Firefox
15% Safari
9% Internet Explorer 7
7% Internet Explorer 6
3% Opera
2% Netscape/Mozilla
1% Camino
We have a very tech-savvy audience here which is why Safari/Firefox are so high.
So IE6 users make up 7% and that number is dropping every month. I’ll see if I can install a copy and find out if its an easy to fix problem, sounds like a width issue from what people are saying about the sidebar. I suppose I could always use those ugly IE6 Comment things and redefine a couple of styles for it.
I’ll try to do it today!
collis
October 2nd, 2007
ooo just saw the multiple iE thing from MSJ, that sounds like what I need, I’ll install it! Wow I’ll even be able to test in IE3! holy moly, now that’ll bring back some bad memories no doubt
Christine
October 2nd, 2007
Seems a lot nicer to navigate for some reason and looks very smart
Graeme
October 2nd, 2007
This looks fantastic! Great work
Carmen Ruiz
October 3rd, 2007
Loooooovely!! the previous one was awsome, but you made it better, thought it was very difficult. Congrats!! You rock, people!!
brendan
October 3rd, 2007
hmmm… i still dont seem to be able to access the forums using Opera 9….
anggi krisna
October 3rd, 2007
nice design and more readability
Jermayn Parker
October 3rd, 2007
In just following up the IE6 issue, its good to see IE6 numbers so low but unless the problem is a huge one and would cause heaps of stress, I would personally fix the problem.
In terms of the design, i like it. I like the option were you can click the most popular, months popular and random posts. If possible, can you please tell us what and how that is done. and if its a plugin or something us others can use???
Thanks for that and the service you guys are producing…
Charity | Design Adaptations
October 3rd, 2007
It’s beautiful indeed, but I SO LOVED the old design. Sounds like I’m the only one sorry to see it go.
Ashish Lohorung Rai
October 3rd, 2007
I loved your both designs. As I am not that much professional in web designing I am just trying to do my best as a designer in future. I wish for your good luck and success in the future. I hope your new design will attract more visitors.
Jeff
October 3rd, 2007
The new design is amazing, very inspirational. I plan to redesign the Go Mediazine soon and I’ll steal some ideas from you
Keep up the great work!
Scott Carpenter
October 3rd, 2007
Love the redesign!
collis
October 3rd, 2007
Hey Jermayn, the random part is from a WordPress plugin, the other two are actually handpicked - not very clever really, I should get a plugin to select the most comments posts or something. In terms of the flipping between, that’s just some (not very well written) javascript, feel free to switch to source code and swipe it
Federico
October 3rd, 2007
Complimenti! davvero un bel lavoro.
Well done, and very interesting articles… I love your blog and and your work.
Harry Roberts
October 3rd, 2007
Love it!
Timothy Diokno
October 3rd, 2007
Wow! Congratulations FreelanceSwitch! Kepp it up. We love you even though we’re not freelancers. LOL!
nomad-one
October 3rd, 2007
Wow, superb design, everything has its place and style. I love the space around things. Each bit of content s much more readable and makes you want to actually read it because of the cleanness of it all. You guys have done an excellent job on this re-design and that’s not even mentioning the content. BTW, I just quit my day job and am in the pains of setting up my own small biz, so will be glad to be visiting your site much more often for all the juicy advice.
Bob
October 4th, 2007
I liked the old design, but this is even better.
Great Job!
Jermayn Parker
October 4th, 2007
One thing missing….
Recent posts in the sidebar. To get to this post from another I had to go to archives, october and then go hear thats two extra clicks!
Thanks Collis for the code hint.
Alexis
October 4th, 2007
I wouldn’t exactly call this “2.0.” More like “1.2.”
Aaron
October 4th, 2007
One thing i don’t like in the new design is the footer. In my opinion it seems to let the rest down a bit.
jb
October 4th, 2007
This new design looks great! And its kind of hard to believe you designed the old one in just a few hours - does that include the coding as well?
fred
October 5th, 2007
love the new site, keep up the good work!
Kuswanto
October 7th, 2007
Great job guys
, love the new site and color scheme.
Ahmad Alfy
October 9th, 2007
Excellent work