Same Blog, New Clothes

Click on the turntable on the left to listen to a continuous stream of music featured on Pretty Much Amazing - updated every day. For more, you can check out the Best Songs of 2011, or our Best Albums of 2011.

I thought it was time for a sleeker, cleaner look. The goal for for this was simplicity and easy navigation. I hope that goal was achieved. If you have any ideas or tips to make PMA’s design more user-friendly, please let me know via the comments.

I want to make sure content is king here at PMA, so I steer clear from flashy and distracting designs, so I apologize if that’s what you are into, but it’s probably not going to happen here anytime soon. Either way, I’m open to your comments and thoughts.

{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }

Viv February 15, 2009 at 1:52 am

PMA is looking good. Love this a lot.

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Bill February 15, 2009 at 1:57 am

no complaints here. great clean, easy look. i approve.

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Alec February 15, 2009 at 1:58 am

Love that I can use an OpenID here now! So cool. The dropdown menus are fucking cool too!

PMA just got way better!

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Johnny February 15, 2009 at 2:30 am

As a design student, I gotta tell you how much I love the simplicity. I love that you rely on cool photos and colorful advertisements to draw the color out. Very nice. You’re accenting the content that needs to be accented. Great move.

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Jenny February 15, 2009 at 2:32 am

You always use some hip, cool, amazing fonts for your headers — I wish I was as typographically diverse as you. :(

it may not be shiny and bright, but PMA has one of the most effective looks out there! It’s so clean and easy to look at… oh and the music is amazing! Thank you and good job!

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Ivan February 15, 2009 at 4:29 am

This is great Luis. Keep up the good (GREAT) work.

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Ali February 15, 2009 at 4:49 am

I’m reasonably new to PMA, but I really liked the old look – I’m sure we’ll get used to this one soon enough, though.

The drop down bars are great, I must say.

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AaronnoraA February 15, 2009 at 7:54 am

Reminds of David Carson’s work, mental man, I think I’m gonna go buy some new simple clothes. Thank you PMA!

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sound verite' February 15, 2009 at 8:50 am

Hi PMA, I’ll get use to it, keep droppin’ bombs on’em….

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Confusion February 15, 2009 at 9:20 am

I don’t think a site has ever made a change that I immediately liked, but I gotta say this is a nice improvement. Good work Luis!

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stargirl February 15, 2009 at 10:57 am

simplicity makes it look good on the mobile too!

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pb February 15, 2009 at 11:22 am

looks great! i’m gonna rain on the parade a tiny bit though…the drop down menus are awesome but i can’t seem to find a way to get out of them once i click on the arrow…anyone having the same problem?
keep up the great work :)

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Joshua February 15, 2009 at 12:18 pm

Yeah, it looks pretty good but this makes the adverts FAR more annoying. They never really bothered me until now actually. So IF I were you I’d either drop the adverts or switch back to your old lay-out which was already outstanding.

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Luis Tovar February 15, 2009 at 12:23 pm

@pb: To get out of the dropdowns, all you have to do is click on the arrow again.

@Joshua: Yeah they do stand out a lot more now, sorry about that — but both of those things are out of the question :)

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JR February 15, 2009 at 12:33 pm

PB: clicking the arrow again works perfectly for me.

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KiCk iN tHe DoOrs February 15, 2009 at 12:45 pm

Good stuff, was this inspired by etmusiquepourtous.com ?

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Luis Tovar February 15, 2009 at 1:04 pm

@KiCk iN tHe DoOrs: ha, actually I’ve never heard of etmusiquepourtous.com.

It was inspired by http://ilovetypography.com/ and maybe a bit by http://stereogum.com/ and http://rcrdlbl.com/

Oh, and I loved the sidebar idea http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment has.

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George February 15, 2009 at 2:56 pm

One little thing – The “Home” hyperlink at the top doesn’t link to the home page if you’re on a post. Rest is very nice.

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Will February 15, 2009 at 3:39 pm

looks beautiful luis. i love it

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Luis Tovar February 15, 2009 at 3:48 pm

@George: THANKS GEORGE! What an obvious glitch — great of you to point it out.

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Brittany February 15, 2009 at 4:07 pm

Looks good, definitely cleaner and simpler to look at.

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Emma February 15, 2009 at 5:16 pm

OMG, I got the update in the mail that stuff had change, but I had no idea this much. Love It!!! My icon is a boy tho… :P (I so need a OpenID now) :(

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Luis Tovar February 15, 2009 at 5:35 pm

Haha, yes. I sort of wish I can make it gender neutral. I mean, I can, but I love that boy icon ahaha.

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KiCk iN tHe DoOrs February 15, 2009 at 10:58 pm

lol, random blog in my rotation. checked out http://ilovetypography.com, very nice, I see your vision!

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j February 16, 2009 at 12:42 am

So clean, i’m not going to take a shower for a week.

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Carrie February 16, 2009 at 8:13 am

I definitely see the RCRD LBL influence. I miss the old colorful header though, so cheerful!

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Edu Villarroel February 16, 2009 at 8:57 am

heey the new design it’s pretty cool, but believe me i loved the last design the other header was, awesome! but every website needs changes! keep it up buddy,
PMA rules!

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Joshua February 16, 2009 at 11:50 am

How about just dropping/moving the advert at the top of the page, the wide one. That one’s the most annoying one. If you move or remove that one it’ll probably be a lot cleaner.

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