Welcome to the new BrooklynVegan.com

As you may have noticed, we got a new look! This redesign was a long time coming, and I’m so relieved it’s finally here. I realize not everyone will love it, at first at least. I’m still getting used to it, and we had to make some compromises that I may not ever be 100% happy about it, but overall we believe things are much better now. Hopefully those who are initially turned off will eventually realize that things really are now new and improved.

BrooklynVegan’s format barely changed in twelve years, and really it still hasn’t changed that much. The site was a dinosaur and behind the curve in so many ways, but especially on mobile. In fact, Google even deemed the site “NOT mobile friendly” which wasn’t very nice of them, but we now have a site they can no longer complain about. If you’re not reading this on your phone, check it out. The mobile experience is pretty great now.

After mobile, the new feature we know will be most loved and hated is our new comment system. We’ve moved to DISQUS and removed anonymous commenting.

On the front end we now have a more advanced template that works better with different browsers, computers and devices. We have better tag and category pages, author pages, bigger photos, more ways to feature content, more dynamic content menus, and more. All of our blogs are also connected now. BrooklynVegan, BV Austin, BV Chicago and Invisible Oranges can more easily communicate and share content when it makes sense.

Most of the work involved was moving 60,000 BrooklynVegan articles and a million comments out of our outdated Movable Type system and into a more modern and feature-rich WordPress+DISQUS based one. There was no straightforward way to do it. It was not an easy task. In fact we’re still fixing bugs related to the complicated imports and exports, but for the most part it’s good now. Thanks so much to Sun, Anibal, Anthony, Rishi, Adrian, JD, JZ, Madison, and everyone else who helped make it happen.

If you notice any issues at all, whether it’s missing content, something not working correctly, something that looks weird or ANYTHING, please contact us and let us know. We really appreciate every bit of feedback we get, and we’ll try to fix what we can.

Thanks for everything,
Dave