Once again, Envato has redesigned their Tuts+ blogs. The changes are primarily evolutionary, though there is a big difference. The new layout features a wider content area and a stronger focus on larger screen sizes.
One of the first things I noticed was that the sites’ advertisement strategy seems to have been rethought. There are no more large leaderboard or 250×250 banners; instead, there are only 125×125 banners. They sit at the top of the narrow sidebar and run down the side of the page in a single column. It actually looks pretty good. They’re out of the way, yet still visible enough to be sought after by potential advertisers.
Overall the UI has been cleaned up, particularly the post footers and comment functions. I particularly like the icon-based “Related Posts” section, with the word bubbles that display the titles when you mouse over them. The “fold” effect on the premium membership box is kind of neat too, despite the fact that it’s becoming too much of a trend lately.
Overall, I would say the new design turned out very well, as is usual for Envato.
Perhaps more than the redesign, I am interested in one of their announcements: “Mobiletuts+,” which will be a tutorial blog “all about mobile development.” If that means it will include iPhone application development tutorials, I will be impatiently monitoring Twitter for the launch. 
