New Mockingjay.net Design
Posted
January 18, 2013 by Crystal in
Site Updates
Hey everyone! As you probably have noticed today, Mockingjay.net has a new design. We loved our old one, but felt it was time for something new and something that worked better for us. Hopefully you guys feel the same way!
There are a couple of bugs we’re still working out, but in the meantime, we hope you guys like the layout in general. Here are some features you’ll find on the new site:
- Featured slider showing you some of the most exciting things from different areas of the site. No more fun yet buried stories that you might have missed!
- Nesting comments – now you can reply to people and it will indent your reply so that it’s clear who you’re talking to!
- Easy to find popular sections in the top navigation bar, for those of you looking for specific things.
- We’ve retained our rotating image header, as that was something we all agreed we loved from the old one.
- Lightbox on images – clicking smaller versions of images will pop the full version up
Features we hope to have implemented soon:
- The events calendar is still acting up, so we hope to get that resolved.
- A countdown to Catching Fire.
- Comment rating – you guys loved this and we hope to bring it back!
- Polls for fun times!
Let us know what you think of the new look!
I love it!
I like it. Always will prefer the blue design in 2011, tho
Haha, we can bring blue back when Mockingjay comes to paperback or something maybe.
That would be so cool! A new blue design after the cover of Mockingjay
that’d be awesome, indeed
At least there’s still the old mockingjay (If I’m not mistaken) beside the logo
Completely agree. The blue design was really unique and nice to look at. I don’ t see why there needed to be a change in the first place. But I do like this newer version over the last one.
I remember that! I liked that a lot too, but I like this one too, it’s cool!
The blue one is my fave, too. Whenever I think of Mockingjay.net, that theme pops into my head.
I agree! That Blue one has always been my favorite. it was so nice to look at and simple
sometimes I feel like these other designs are just too much, but I do like them nevertheless.
So beautiful! I really love it! Good job
Great looking!
Takes a tiny bit longer to load than the one before, but other than that its a great layout.
Liking the ‘about the author’ box
I really like it. I never saw the blue one but I prefer this over the last one.
OMG OMG btw I just realized one of the images that popped up at the top when I refreshed was a Catching Fire still!!! I was almost going to email you guys and mention that you should do that but you already have!
Here is where I show my Boring Old Person cred and say that I am not a fan of all the visual busyness in the design, however on trend it may be. I preferred the black, but that and this are an improvement over the blue. At any rate, I’m sure I’ll adjust.
Not sure what you mean. Is the background not showing up black for you? What browser do you use?
Sorry, I should’ve been more specific. By “black” I meant the previous version of the site, which to me had not just a black background but a darker-feeling color schematic generally. I can still see the black background now; I’m just adapting to the fact that there’s a lot more lightness to the site overall.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a change and I’m sure you’ll adjust after a few days! (hopefully)
I don’t see a black background. Mine’s white. I use Safari and am from Europe…don’t know if that makes a difference, but it sure makes me dislike this new design.
What a beautiful suprise I found today when I entered the side!
Comment rating works again!
I love the new design!!!!!!!!! It’s toooooooooo cooooooooooollll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love it!! I can’t wait until you guys have the polls!
I also love the catching fire stills at the top. I was waiting for you guys to do that!
The new site design seems a bit more commercial than the last one; the last one seemed more “homey”. Not sure yet which one I prefer. I do like the “featured” items at the tip.
I hope this redesign has made the site more stable than the last, as that one used to crash my browser a lot because of “long-running scripts”. I definitely like the ability to thread topic discussions with the nesting replies.
It should definitely be a lot more stable – we had quite a few issues with non-working plugins and some other gremlins with the previous look, the comment rating and the calendar come to mind. Some videos (particularly MTV) would also cause the layout to falter.
At any rate there is plenty of room for change and adaptation with this new layout so it will be a lot easier for us to update as needed and it does a lot more
In regards to the commercial part of your comment, are you finding the ads more noticeable or do you mean the integration of Twitter, Tumblr etc/the aesthetics? There should be no more ads than there were before.
Re the “commercial” comment, I wasn’t thinking about the ads at all, just that the whole layout seemed more “slick”, as if it was designed by a commercial firm. The social media links, the banner of featured items at the top, the more populated right-sided sidebar, and the “official” CF skin image to the left all made me think that the site could easily be mistaken, on first glance, for some kind of “official” CF site; which is meant to be a compliment!
But, many such content-heavy sites can be slow and unstable, which was one concern of mine. I was unable to gain access to the site for about half an hour earlier tonight. But, so far, no browser crashes (FYI I mainly use Chrome), which is good!
so cool !!!! <3 <3
it is awesome!!!! <3 
Agree with everyone! I also like the website just need some time for the change. I did really like that blue background also it made it like our own that no one else had it so it would be cool if that could come back. Great job guys like it alot!!
I like it especially that you guys kept the rotating images and you guys also added the new pics I’m just gonna miss seeing Peeta’s face on the side.
I love the new design and the new features thing at the top. You should make a date and time for all HG fans to vote for the MTV Movie Brawl 2013 at once and put it at the features menu. We may have been way ahead of the pack in round one, but The Host has overtaken CF!
I know this wouldn’t count as featured but just put it up there! We’re losing!
Love the new look!
LOVE the new layout! So much more crisp and professional looking than the other one, not to mention a lot fresher for the new year to come
Love it! So pro.
OH MY GOSH!!!! IT LOOKS AMAZING MOCKINGJAY.NET!!!! AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
love it!!!
u guys went full on PRO with the design
love it!
love it !
The new look is fine, I guess. Although I prefer the movie still in previous layout. Because they are bigger
I mean, the banner in previous layout is bigger, so I can see the photo still bigger than in current layout. Ah, that’s okay.
‘Though, I still still like the darker atmosphere before, I think I will get used to this new layout.
I love it! Really professional and thg-ish, haha!
I LOVE the new design.. It’s a lot easier to get around
Yeah, one of the things that bugged me the most about our old layout was that it was so tough to actually FIND things. And if you wanted to know the latest big news, it could already be scrolled off onto page 2 or 3. The slider will make it easier to see the good stuff right off!
This is a bit of a shock, after the old one, but I like all the new features you guys added!!!
Gorgeous new design, guys! Love it
I like it. It definitely is more up to date looking. More “official” one might say =) The previous design had a blogesque feel to it that I liked a lot, but the ease of navigating is better with the new design.
Ok judging by everyones reaction it just must not be the way it is on everyone else’s site…
again mine looks like someone had to turn in a school project and did a good job on the layout, but didn’t have enough time to finish up the overall look…again everything is white on mine…I see the logo on the top, but the rest is just white.
I wrote this before and was wondering, why no one is responding and trying to fix this…
anywho it would be nice if you would fix it for people that see it like me..again foreigner and Safari user…
I
Something that would be great is a way to scroll through stories in order!