Blog P.I.

So what to make of Red State’s new look, debuting this morning along with the site’s long-planned move to the Drupal platform? One thing is for sure: No website overhaul can be truly complete until the sidebar is moved from one side of the page to the other. By moving theirs rightward, Red State has fulfilled this requirement and remains directionally consistent.

Viewing the site in Firefox, my reaction to the layout is somewhat mixed: Trebuchet works well in the sidebar, but the Trebuchet post headlines seem a bit too generic (the thick underline doesn’t help). And in our opinion those headlines should be dark red by default, not on mouseover. The best new thing the layout has going for it, methinks, is the alternating red and dark red links to RedHot entries. The very top looks good, too, especially the integration of the search bar. Plus, next to Slate’s convoluted redesign, almost anything looks good by comparison.

The list of recent comments is gone, which isn’t that big of a deal, but any reduction in navigation options can’t quite count as progress. Still, the introductory post gives reason to think the site’s actual functionality will be overall much improved.

And most interestingly, Diaries are now called “Spotlighted blogs.” This isn’t that big of a deal either, though on the plus side it may help the site establish an identity separate from Daily Kos (which it has self-consciously emulated, right down to using the same Scoop platform) but will surely also perpetuate the mistaken idea that a single post constitutes “a blog.” If the use of “entries” and “posts” dwindles to nothing, I’m holding Red State partially accountable.

Update: Clicking back an hour or so later, I notice the author names on each post have now been hyperlinked, and they’re in red — which makes the thick post headlines more tolerable, and suggests other unannounced tweaks may be in the pipeline.