Browns.com gets revamped look, featuring Brownie the Elf

If you visit the Cleveland Browns’ official team website every so often, you may have noticed that they debuted a revamped design on Tuesday. First, let’s remind you of what the old one looked like vs. what the new one looks like:

Old Design

New Design

Thoughts

The most fascinating takeaway from the re-design is how prominently the original Brownie the Elf mascot is featured at the top of the website, almost taking precedence over the official helmet logo. What makes this all-the-more-hilarious (at least to me) is the fact that my April Fool’s joke a few months ago was all about how the team was “reportedly phasing Brownie the Elf mascot out by 2019 season.”

That’s the good thing about the site.

I’m a little old-school in the sense that I like the extra character (some colors, how things are arranged, etc) that a website can have when it it optimized for a desktop viewing experience. Some of that is removed with the new site, and I instantly knew why: it is so it can adapt much more smoothly for a mobile viewing experience now, which makes sense given the amount of time we spend on phones or tablets these days.

One nuisance about the new home page is the extra click involved to get to things. I used to be able to hover over something like “team,” and a dropdown menu would pop down with options for roster, depth chart, etc. Now, you have to click through to team, and then find what you are looking for. The roster page is something I also frequented regularly, and the pictures that are now included on the page make the table more difficult to quickly scan through with the eyes.

But many of those things are just nitpicking for someone like me, who has a habit of doing things (either scraping the roster page or quickly digesting news).

What are your thoughts on the team’s new website design?