Over the last week, YouTube has gradually rolled out its new ‘Video Page’ design to a select number of beta testers.

The new look comes complete with a greater emphasis on the video, “like” and “dislike” buttons (as opposed to the 5 star rating system), information about the video is slotted underneath the video rather than to the right of it, and the entire page is equipped with expand and contract options that help ensure minimal clutter.

It’s unquestionably a step in the right direction and if you’re keen to try it out simply click on this link. If you’re wanting to switch back, you’ll see a “return to the old YouTube” in the top right corner. Enjoy.

Original title and link for this post: How To Try YouTube’s Minimalist New Look

If you were on Twitter.com earlier you may have picked up on a few design issues. It was only temporary but like many other things on twitter, it caused a bit of a stir.

Twitter’s product designer Vitor Lourenço said no design changes were taking place, but clearly some have, even if it is just a change to a more mac like setting navigation.

You should see the changes in your settings here, if not, here a few screenshots till you do.

Before

After:

Original title and link for this post: Twitter’s Been Prettying Up Its UI (probably explains the glitches earlier)

The new Twitter design (launched earlier today, and only available to some people (keep refreshing!)) is basic, speedy and compatible with all browsers! The missing images icons keep you guessing what people look like which is pretty exciting.

Some cynical users have attributed this to scaling issues and are suggesting it must be a simple error. But we know that Biz and Evan are always thinking about ways to make the service simpler and easier to use. Removing the stylesheets and images was a logical next step when you think about it.

I’m sure this will be followed by many sites. Expect facebook and Google to adopt this new look somewhere in the following two weeks.

Ah damn, maybe that title should have said “Twitter Design Completely Broken”. Sorry about that. I’m dyslexic.

UPDATED: new design is also live in France, UK, Germany, France and Finland. Looks like it is being rolled out country by country. Let us know in the comments if you see it too and if you like it!

Original title and link for this post: BREAKING: Twitter launches completely new design

Update from Facebook at the foot of this post

We have been tipped off that there may be an “improved” version of the Facebook news feed in the works. The new feed is not very different from the current one available, but it does lack Facebook’s signature “Publisher” box by default and instead simply features an alternating title and a button (positioned to the top right of the news feed) with the text “Update Status” which when clicked, displays the publisher box.

The design also features a new “Top News” link (The link then switches to “Recent Stories” once you have clicked the “Top News” link) which shows an overview of the top news on your news feed (this seems to filter the feeds that have received the most comments/likes).

The refreshed design reminds us of the new Facebook Lite design in terms of the new grey buttons and subtitles at the top of the news feed. We are currently unsure if this is a site-wide change or if it is only being tested on a select few accounts. Do you see these changes on your news feed? If so, how long have you experienced the new design and what are your thoughts on the changes?

Do you miss the Facebook publisher showing by default or do you prefer the new “lighter” design? You can find several screenshots of the design changes below.

Recent Stories

Top News

Another screenshot of the new recent stories view

Thanks to Sam for this tip!

*Update:* I have seen these changes for myself and we can absolutely guarantee that the above screenshots are not a hoax and are genuine.

*Update 2:* We have received confirmation from Facebook regarding the news feed and pass on the following statement:

“We are currently testing different designs of the News Feed and the home page with select users. The tests help us understand if we can make it easier for users to balance both the most important and the most recent information from people they’re connected to.”

Original title and link for this post: Confirmed: Facebook design refreshment in the works [Screenshots] (updated)

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information related to movies, actors, television shows and basically everything else that moves on a screen. I haven’t watched a movie and not checked it on IMDB first since, well, I don’t even remember.

IMDb launched on October 17, 1990, which is even before the birth of the World Wide Web. They were acquired by Amazon.com in 1998 and went on to grow to become the 22nd most visited website in the US.

And that was sorta where they stopped evolving. Okay, maybe they installed really spiffy servers and optimized the HTML a bit but I don’t think I noticed any significant changes on the site except maybe a few extra links to Amazon.

It always amazed me that this prime web property seems so neglected. No new features, no new design and hardly any signs of efforts to monetize their success.

Yes, there were a few randomly placed banner ads and there is a ‘IMDbPro’ button (added in 2002) somewhere that would seem to indicate there is a way to pay for something. Still, is that all?

After all, this is the number 22 most visited website in the US!

To give you an idea what that means:

- 11 months ago ago Twitter was smaller
- They have 2,5 times the combined traffic of Mahalo and Squidoo
- They get more visitors than Apple, LinkedIn and The New York Times

Oh, I got most of these stats from Alexa.com; another seemingly neglected Amazon property.

So why the history lesson? Well, IMDB has redesigned their site. It isn’t a major change but it is an update nonetheless. I don’t usually write about simple redesigns but this is the 22nd most visited site after all and they haven’t redesigned since 1999 so I guess this is noteworthy. The changes are so minimal that I included both design here for you:

old design:

new design:

Original title and link for this post: Party like its 1999: a redesigned IMDB.com

Twitter isn’t known for making frequent design alterations to the site nor anything particularly major when they do. That said, over recent weeks the site had made a number of design refinements, the most significant being the homepage redesign.

One noticeable area that didn’t see any sign of change was the sign up/login form that followed the homepage. Now, although Twitter has still yet to do anything drastic, the background to the sign-up/login form has been replaced, along with the default Twitter background once you’ve created your account. The following/followers/tweets figures have also been given a crisper text formatting – helvetica I believe?

Default avatars have also been changed to a slightly more modern and colorful range. And the 404 page and suspended acccounts pages have also been redesigned completely.

Sign Up

404 Error

Suspended Accounts

Thanks Simon!

Original title and link for this post: Twitter makes more design refinements (updated)

Two typographers (Pierre & Damien) and a pro race pilot (Stef van Campenhoudt) collaborated to design a font with a car. The car movements were tracked using a custom software, designed by interactive artist Zachary Lieberman.

Work of art or too much time on their hands?

Download the font here: toyota.be/iqfont

More pictures here: flickr.com/photos/40243214@N05/sets/72157621047564023/

via Design You Trust

Original title and link for this post: IQ Font: A Font Based Entirely On the Movements of a Car

For your average business person, darting between meetings and conference calls, shopping is often the last thing on your mind. Irrespective, making sure you’re looking prim and proper is a must and nothing does it better than a classic fitting shirt.

One company looking to cater to the market is ShirtsMyWay.com, a site devoted to custom shirts, (just for men at the moment). The site makes it possible to create your own shirts online in just a few minutes, and have the customized to your personal tastes.

In just three steps, the Shanghai based startup allows you to design shirts based on any type of fabric, and customize it to your hearts content. . Once you’re done, the company offers free shipping too.

The long term business prospects are what makes me believe that this company might just have a future. With shirts, assuming you don’t pile on the pounds, you’ll have one size for a number of years. So after creating your first short, the company will naturally store all your details and they’re hoping you’ll end up ordering shirts from then onwards.

The company has kindly offered our readers 10% off orders until the 24th July. To do so, place your order as normal and send an email to support@shirtsmyway.com with your name and promo code “The Next Web 10%” within 1 hour after the order is placed. The ste will then refund you 10% on your order.

Original title and link for this post: ShirtsMyWay Lets You Design Shirts Online, Your Way.

We don’t tend to post design related content here but as a designer I’m hoping to change that!

I wanted to mention a great monthly feature of one of my favorite design websites Smashing Magazine. The website, which is aimed at web designers and developers, has a monthly wallpaper series that seeks to offer creative wallpapers to spark the imagination and inspire.

If your like me your constantly searching for things in the world around you to inspire your designs and bring fresh perspectives to what your working on. Given how many hours a day your in front of your computer I feel that your desktop wallpaper shouldn’t be something that you overlook.

Check out Smashing Magazine’s July wallpapers – all are submitted to the site by the community and include a version with and without the current month’s calendar worked into the design. Fill out this form if your interested in submitting your design to the series.

Original title and link for this post: Change up that boring desktop wallpaper!

YouTube user and Taiwanese Savannah College of Art and Design student bunllu had far too many Post-its at hand and rather than put them to waste, he thought he’d bring us this marvelous piece of stop motion animation:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpWM0FNPZSs

According to Bang-Yao Liu the idea

comes from is that every time when I am busy, I feel that I am not fighting with my works, I am fighting with those post-it notes and deadline.

Like it? Check out the making-of!

Original title and link for this post: A Post-it Stop Motion Movie. Yes, we said Post-it.

Joe Lifrieri, a visual artist specializing in illustrations and design for ‘digital mediums’ has a website titled ‘hugs for monsters‘. He seems to be seriously fed up with Internet Explorer 6. So fed up in fact that he has a special message for people still using it.

Is it a bit harsh? Well, yes.
Do you think IE users will get the picture now? Unlikely.
Is it funny? Hell yeah!

Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Screenshots after the jump

Original title and link for this post: Friendly browser detect message is NSFW and NSFIE

When designing software for the iPhone you would think people would use Photoshop, illustrator or the Interface Design software Apple included in the iPhone developer suite. Not Chris over at CulturedCode. He used pencils, wooden forms representing various interface elements, ink, brushes and felt pens to sketch the User Interface for Things:

Make sure you check out this photo full screen. It is just beautiful:

Original title and link for this post: Designing iPhone Software: paper, pencils, wooden forms, ink and brush

The Mozilla Labs Design Challenge Summer ’09 is looking for creative solutions to reinvent browser tabs.

These days 20+ parallel sessions on a browser are quite common. The browser is more of an operating system than a data display application. And tabs don’t work well if you use them with heterogeneous information.

But, looking at the brighter side, this solves the problem of having multiple browser application windows which usually clutter the task bar. However, having tabs across the top of the application window doesn’t make that much sense, especially as the number of open pages increases.

The Question

Reinventing Tabs in the Browser – How can we create, navigate and manage multiple web sites within the same browser instance?

To participate in the design challenge you need to create a mockup of your proposed solution. A mockup can be anything from a wireframe, a drawing or a polished graphic. You also need to create a video explaining your idea(s), presenting the mockup and showing how your idea works.

To get you started, to inspire your thinking and to give you a faster insight, check out this presentation on visualizing browser tabs by TabViz

To check out further details on the design challenge click here.

Original title and link for this post: Mozilla Labs Design Challenge: Reinventing Tabs in the Browser

To be totally honest I don’t like Android much. Call me an AppleFanboy all you want but I just LOVE my iPhone. I do have to admit however that the Android is an exciting software platform.

Now if only someone could make a good looking Android phone.

PCWorld feels the same way apparently and has published an article titled “11 Cool Android Prototypes We’d Like to See” with a few cool looking phones. None as cool and well designed as my beloved iPhone 3G of course (except the huawei which is just a rip-off) but check them out anyway:

Let us know; would you switch from your iPhone to Android if one of these phones would become available?

Original title and link for this post: A few Android Prototypes to whet your appetite…

Browse your NSFW content in style! Imagine 15 people in an office all wearing this. How awesome would that look?! Okay, there are some drawbacks: how quickly can you get out of the pullover to pick up your phone? How attractive will you be to the opposite sex? Is there room for a cup of coffee and a sandwich?

I like it…

Original title and link for this post: Fashion + Technology = The Privacy Pullover

$80 for the set isn’t too bad!

via DesignMilk

Original title and link for this post: Adobe Creative Suite pillows. For those who sleep and dream design.

WWW megastar Robert Scoble has reached such popularity that he’s become a blogger who doesn’t need to ask anything of their blog design – irrespective of the fact that he’s been known to slate startups for their poor site designs(!)

As simple as a paleochristian architect reinventing roman epic temples and palaces, Scoble seems to have given up even to a standard Wordpress blog template, to better contemplate the truth(s) of the social web.

With the only support of the Sandbox theme, Robert is bravely standing up against herds of commenters, simply asking for a font different from Times New Roman:

“I wanted to see if it would have a major impact on traffic. It did not. [..] I wanted to see who would complain and who would praise it. Some complained that it was too unprofessional. Others complained it?s hard to read on high resolution monitors (the text goes all the way across the browser)”.

To tell the truth, I’m finding the approach rather innovative; focus on content and let the social networking sites do the rest. Maybe, for blogs, the widgets and clutter era has really begun to fade away. Whilst we realise Scoble’s just ‘in between’ site designs and is likely to soon return to ads and perfectly implemented sidebars, it’s interesting to consider the days of widgets and clutter gradually fading away.

And by the way, Robert, please don’t let them turn Times New Roman the new Comic Sans.

Original title and link for this post: Scoble: The Paleochristian

The guys at Web Designer Depot put together a list of screenshots from various Operating Systems dating back nearly 30 years. If you haven’t had a browse already ensure you do, otherwise have a skim of our selection below including the latest Windows 7 release.

Xerox 8010 Star (released in 1981)

Apple Lisa Office System 1 (released in 1983)

Windows 2.0x (released in 1987)

Mac OS System 8 (released in 1997)

Mac OS X Leopard (released in 2007)

GNOME 2.24 (2008)

Windows 7 Release Candidate 1

Original title and link for this post: Operating System interface design from 1981 to 2009

Earlier this week Friendfeed, the social aggregator and discussion platform, announced a press conference of sorts at their offices on Friday. Robert “The Scobleizer” Scoble stepped into their offices just a few moments ago and was able to share news (via Friendfeed) of an upcoming redesign, to supposedly go live on Monday on their beta site http://beta.friendfeed.com.

Friendfeed founders Paul Buchheit and Bret Taylor are choosing not to release details of the update until then – presumably to ensure Facebook don’t duplicate the features before hand (sorry, I’m bitter..).

Further details to be posted here as we hear it.

Original title and link for this post: New Friendfeed design coming Monday.

via (in case you hadn’t noticed) FunnyChill

Original title and link for this post: Macbook Engraving Inspiration!