N-Philes

First of all, I'm going to let everyone know that if you don't like the layout, you don't have to deal with it. We've left the old layout under the option "Narrow", so if that's your cup of tea then by all means stick with it.

The next thing I should touch on is something I imagine people would be wondering, which is why exactly we went for this change. Well, the first thing you'll notice is that there's more content on screen at any given time. Whereas in the Narrow layout only about two news pieces can be seen right away, you can see many more now. The banner is gone, because hell, you're already on our site, we don't need to advertise it too much to you. The N-Blogs are moved to the side to give more attention to the featured content and news, and even still there's more visible side-bar content at any given time than there was with the narrow format.

Now, with so much content on screen, we didn't want things to be overwhelming to the eyes. I always felt that the site was a little text-heavy, with nearly everything but the featured content written in the same small font, which can be rough on the eyes. So while we didn't completely overhaul the site, we tried to make at least the more prominent navigation headers into sleek-looking banners. You'll notice that on the Features and Reviews pages, text is also replaced with banners, which makes everything look like we put a little more work into it (which we did).

When you go to Features, you'll also notice another change. Long-running series (such as the M.I.A. Files) are now bound together via links at the bottom of each post. When we ran our End Boss Month I really liked how one day's feature led right into another, which usually caused me to read all of them several times over. Now when we post an M.I.A. File, hopefully it'll draw readers to read not only that one but also to sample the complete catalogue of M.I.A.'s, either finding those that they missed or re-reading those that they especially enjoyed the first time around.

Another adjustment to the Features section is that, where applicable, there's a quick description of the type of feature at that feature's specific screen. N-Philes has a large populace of regular viewers, but newcomers might have no idea what a Classic Plastic is. Or an M.I.A. File. So now, there it is, at a glance. Makes things a little more user-friendly.

This isn't the end of changes. Just looking over the site to see what's changed so I could write this announcement, I've noticed quite a few little touch-ups that are going to be made soon that didn't quite make the launch of the new 3-column layout. And maybe there will be some not-so-little changes made. Hey, it's like I'm Nintendo in a press conference and I'm going to leave you wondering instead of making everything easy and just putting all the cards on the table. Oh well, guess it'll keep you on your toes. Take care now.
-- Jared