Sepia Mutiny 2.0 Launch! This is the…remix

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Update: April Fool! See here.

Hey everyone, at long last it is time! We are FINALLY ready to unveil the much anticipated updates to our little site. The effort has lasted for months behind the scenes, led by talented designer Avani P and our amazing website administrator Chaitan Bandela.

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p>In designing a new website the first thing we wanted to do was to simplify the existing look. Over the years the front page of our site has become over-crowded with buttons and multiple tabs, and the text has become smaller. This new website is cleaner and promises to load faster, saving you precious seconds as you visit obsessively throughout the day. The font is nice and large so you don’t strain your eyes. Additionally, the banners at the top, while charming, had kind of lost their novelty. We have replaced the banners with new “branding” per Avani’s advice. Since we talk about monkeys so often at SM, we thought, “why not make a Macaca-like icon the new official logo/mascot,” so that we can use it to promote SM as a distinct brand. We are also in search of a social media consultant who will help us to better incorporate Twitter and Facebook with our site (no ghost Twitterers though). Stay tuned for that.

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We fully expect our readers to find bugs as they navigate the new site over the next few days and weeks. Chaitan will work as hard as he can to fix these bugs as we become aware of them. In the comments section below you can detail any such “brokes” you find. Please keep your comments focused on technical issues as opposed to artistic issues if you would please. Change is always difficult but research shows that given time the new look will soon feel as comforting as the old. We did run mock-ups of this new design by focus groups composed of long time SM readers whose opinion we trust before finalizing the new look. We also tried to mimic the best elements of other popular blogs and bring the site up to Web 2.0 standards. Thanks again to all of our readers for sticking with us as we approach our fifth year! And most of all thanks to Avani and Chaitan for their Herculean efforts!

77 thoughts on “Sepia Mutiny 2.0 Launch! This is the…remix”

  1. Is this an April Fool’s joke? I’m POOR and reading on an old 17-inch monitor. I have to scroll to read. Bad design. Text should not extend across the whole screen. Background is too bright, type is too small. Look is frenetic and crowded. Again, is this a JOKE?

  3. BRING THE OLD SEPIA BACK! text should not extend across the whole screen. Background is too bright, type is too small. Look is frenetic and crowded. There’s too much beige and brown highlighting happening.

    I second these comments

  4. too much screen space occupied by two long columns on the right leading to too much scrollling down to read a post.

  5. Can readers vote on this? I don’t mind a new design but this is not right.. Please let this be April fool’s joke

  6. Two conspiracy theories since this new design is so incredibly bad – 1) This is an inane April Fools prank (who does those anymore anyway?). 2) This is indeed a launch for the new website but it was a test launch and the 54 commenters so far were the focus group. Coinciding it with April Fools day was a smart ploy for plausible deniability in case everybody thought it sucked. I predict the old website will be back tomorrow with a “fabricated” April Fools prank explanation. I’m sorry for the bounced check, Avani.

    If its theory 1, then I’ll be disappointed at your creativity. But then again, given theory 2, we’ll never know, will we? WILL WE?????? (Cue hysterical laughter)

  7. Oh hah hah hah! After having a day at work that was a joke, I come home to this…priceless. My eyes hurt now.

  11. title of the post has a much much smaller font size than the body….can’t figure out whether to read a post or not since the title is too small, not bold etc.

  12. Dear SM, The new format is very difficult to read. Need to side-scroll to read posts. Lines of text are also too close together. Also, I don’t like the black text on white background.

    Please tell me this is a April Fools Day joke, as others have suggested. Otherwise, please cancel my subscription.

    Regards, CMF

  13. “guest blogger pardesi gori” would’ve been a good one

    I laughed. 🙂

    Kind of a cruel april fool’s joke, this “redesign” 🙂

  14. I love Avani. She is so creative. I have never seen anything like this before. Is she available?

  15. I don’t like the black text on white background.

    ah..i was getting this some weird uncomfortable feeling while reading and could’t really figure out what really was wrong with the design. your words have made it clear

  16. Sucks.

    The clothesline script is jaded, and it reeks of Brahminism, there are a lots of Jilebi script people here.

    Who uses those vertical columns anyway? I doubt whether anyone clicks on those links to go to a post/comment, I am not sure what their purpose is.

  17. If I have a seizure do to the annoying colors can I sue?

    You guys are going to ride this thing tell the wheels fall off, arent you?

  19. I have the feeling that you guys are going to unveil the “real” new site and it is going to be awesome.

    I have seen the picture of Avani and that is the picture of a man who is creative. I bet the new site is going to make your computer smell like strawberries or something every time you vist it.

  20. Oooops. Never mind about the picture thing. For some reason I thought the guy who has half his face illuminated by a flashlight was the designer.

    I knew Avani was a woman’s name, but I am not confident in my evaluation on Indian names. Coming from a Punjabi back ground I was crushed to find out that their were girls that share my name even though I am a man. I blame unisex Punjabi names for this problem of mine.

  21. I have seen the picture of Avani and that is the picture of a man who is creative.

    You should get your eyes checked. Avani is a woman, and a talented one.

  25. The new design is not even remotely aesthetically pleasing. I sorely miss the old banners. The monkey sucks. I’m not even sure if I will be a regular reader; that’s how lame I find the changes.

  27. I’m sorry but the comments on the new site are very hard to read (also the blog if you go on to “read more”). The text stretches from one end of the screen to the other. I checked 5 other sites just now and nobody else does that. Text is supposed to be in columns to make it easier to read.