UMS 2.0

So the whole point of setting up this reboot blog was to start posting about all the work we were doing to re-launch unmatchedstyle into it’s latest version. We’re calling this 2.0 because it will be a total recreation and reboot of what’s here. Right now the site is built on WordPress and has been since 2004. Holy hell…2004?

July 24, 2011 we will celebrate 7 years of posts. That’ll be just over 3,000 websites reviewed, each with it’s own blog post. The site has come a long way since it’s launch. But this new version we’re working is a total reworking of what you currently know UMS to be. We’re using CodeIgniter for the core framework as well as some custom PHP and JavaScript that Jason has created. Among other things here’s the quick list of what we’re hard at work getting in place:

Complete visual redesign
Larger website previews
Sorting by categories, tags, colors, layouts & awards
Awards: we’ll be assigning different type awards to the websites we love
Full size website screenshots
Annotations: make selectable notes on your favorite parts of a website in the gallery
Member accounts: you’ll need to sign up with the site to do stuff

That’s really not all we’re doing, we have a full year’s worth of features and ideas to complete but this quick list should get us re-launched, back to status quo with the functionality that WordPress does for us now, and enable us to have some pretty awesome new features on day one. We’re psyched for this and I hope you guys follow us as we prepare unmatchedstyle for the future.

One thing I didn’t mention is that we have Giovanni working on some fun illustrations to use on the new site. We’ve previewed a few on the reboot blog here that have been completed for our sticker packs and other giveaways but the website will be full of some really fun elements. Namely the Awards we’re planning to setup for our favorite elements on the websites we review here in the gallery.

Here’s another quick dribbble/preview at what we have going on now illustration wise: