The evolution of design, for blogging

This week TechCrunch launched a new design for their site and Michael Arrington, the founder, posted links to the previous designs. Which gives us a unique chance to see the evolution of blog design from 2005 to 2011.

Screenshots of all four changes are provided below and here are the big changes I noticed, what did you see?

• Ads – most dramatic change, in number (1 ⇒ 8 ⇒ 10 ⇒ 1) and size (wide banner is gone).
• Admin links – like categories, search, about, have steadily moved up the site, now resting on the very top.
• RSS – went from prominent placement to completely missing.
• Content – hasn’t changed, except for picture on left and title font growth.
• Sidebar – the eternal experimental space with the site going from sidebars at dual surround, dual right, thinner dual right, and single right.

 *TechCrunch runs on WordPress*

2011

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2008

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2006

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2005

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Photo credits

2011 – my screenshot

2008 – Digital Inspiration

2006 – CrunchNotes

2005 – Michael Arrington on Flickr