Pro Blog Design – Before and After

Michael of Pro Blog Design launched a new iteration of his blog’s sidebar on Friday. Since I knew about the planned update a couple days in advance, I snagged a screenshot of the old one before it was replaced. Stop looking at me like that. Wouldn’t you go and take a screenshot of a cool design if you knew it was about to change?

I’m sure you can guess what I’m planning.

Now that the new sidebar is up, it’s time to compare it with the old one. Below is a side-by-side (or sidebar-by-sidebar? ) comparision.

First impression: Holy mackerel, it’s wide.

Michael has went from a three-column design to a two-column one with a much wider sidebar, and it looks good. I’m still used to seeing the old design, so the new one still looks a little odd to me.

I really like the look of the subscription area, with the big RSS icon, email subscription form, and Feedburner chicklet. The DOM Tabs save a lot of room and clutter, and they look good as well.

Michael’s latest design tweak has turned out well, and has opened up some extra room in the sidebar. However, I’d like to know why he has suddenly decided to make this change. Especially after his post “Why I’m Using a 3 Column Layout.”