Today across the Tuts+ network we’re rolling out some changes to our brand and how our sites work together. These changes include a rebrand of our logos, a shift from multiple domain names to a single top level domain, a universal Plus membership, a Plus Affiliate Program, updated Plus interface, a Twitter Tuts+ news stream and a new tutsplus.com site complete with a rearrangeable dashboard. In other words, a whole bunch of stuff!
Looking Ahead
It’s been a big year and a half for Tuts+. From a one-man hobby site, we grew into a regularly updated blog. Then from there into an editor-run, multiple author blog. Then around this time last year, we went from one blog to two, three, four and by the end of the year five. Along the way we’ve redesigned four times, launched a Plus membership that over three thousand people have paid hard-earned money to be a part of, added videos, freebies, hundreds of tutorials, articles, roundups and posts, and watched traffic to the five sites climb past 12 million pageviews.
That’s all pretty cool. But like that BTO anthem says … You ain’t seen nothing yet!
As big as the last 18 months have been, we’ve got bigger planned for the next lot. We’re pretty passionate about teaching around here, and we’re working hard to figure out how to grow Tuts+ into the best education platform we can make it, to teach not just Photoshop, Web Development, After Effects, Illustration and Audio Skills, but a whole, big range of other stuff too. It’s a plan that we’ll be talking about lots and lots during the year, and one I hope many of you readers will get behind and help with.
But first things first. If we’re going to grow a killer education platform, we need a solid brand to build it on. So late last year we looked at our five sites and decided it was time to pull them together … and that’s what today is about.
*.tutsplus.com
The first big change we’ve made is to move from five domain names to one – tutsplus.com. So instead of psdtuts.com we’re now using psd.tutsplus.com, instead of nettuts.com we’re using net.tutsplus.com, and so on. In recent months we’ve had offers of sale of various _tuts domains for amounts going up all the way into the thousands of dollars each … which kind of sucks. A single domain means it’ll be easier to pick out new sub-brands without this worry and it helps the sites feel like parts of a cohesive whole.
For sites you’ve grown used to, don’t worry about the name change as you can still use the old domain names and they’ll just redirect you over so all your bookmarks and links will still work.
New Branding
The change in domain name also introduces our new core brand – Tuts+ – so we’ve updated our branding to reflect this with a central logo and a series of sub-logos that include the main brand in them and still work with the old names. We’ve also got a new typeface, new Plus imagery and a new Tuts+ site.
Finally we’re going to slowly standardize how we write the name to Tuts+, Psd.tuts+, Vector.tuts+, Audio.tuts+ and so on. It looks a bit weird to me at the moment, but I’m sure we’ll get used to it, and it matches the domain names and means we can stop hitting CAPS whenever we write the names :-)
Unifying Plus and Other Plus Changes
In the year since it launched over three thousand people have subscribed to Plus through both Psd.tuts+ and Vector.tuts+. And while this alone shows it’s worth the $19 we charge every month, we’ve decided that it’d be much better value if we merged the two together, and added in Plus content for Net.tuts+ for good measure. There are more Plus changes, but they are worthy of a post all on their own, so we’ll leave that for later on today!
The New Dashboard, News and Hub Site
Finally to tie everything together we’ve built a neat little Tuts+ main site which features a little dashboard that pulls in the latest posts from the network, news via our @Tuts+ Twitter feed, rising Digg stories from the Tuts+ network (via our Tuts+ Digg Account) and also the most recent Plus files available for download.
The whole dashboard is customizable – rearrange or collapse the widgets to suit yourself! If that sounds familiar, it’s because we have a tutorial over at Net.tuts+ (Mimic the iGoogle Interface) that will help you do just that.
Head over and check out the awesome new Tuts+ site and be impressed by the brilliant work our uber-WordPress developer Derek Herman has put together!
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Great work guys , never cease to amaze me.
Wow, the new branding is great idea… Congrats Collis
Have been a reader since PSDTUTS was only little site…. Still remember of the the first tutorials which taught me how to make round badges with the glass effect!
Evanto networks has greatly expanded !
Congratulations.
Brilliant really happy – i am already a plus member on psd tuts but did not want to pay for any additional ones – so i’m a happy camper today
This is great news! I was wondering when you will move everything under one umbrella.
I love the new branding Collis!
I am a massive fan of continuity when it comes to a brand and you always manage to pull that off so well!
Excited to see the tuts+ future!
This is really great news. I am so happy to see PSDTUTS grow up so fast.
Congrats on making everything here so great! Looking forward to the future you guys have.
nice works… getting jazzed about becoming a plus member
cheers….
Very nice!!
greetz
Beautimous. Are you guys using wordpress Mu / Buddy Press?
wow!
new logos are much impressive as like as collis :)
good work, team Envato :)
Long live Envato……
I love those designing works and icons present in all over the new sites…
collis,
write a tutorial for those icons present in the dashboard (a plug icon), plus program (a battery icon) and the evergreen text effects present in the logo!
I love the new AJAXIFIED sites :)
really a neat work!
Viva Envato folks! I like the fact that your are unifying everything, its definitely going to encourage me subscribe to plus+
first of all i visit here after rebranding….
i type psdtuts.com and wait for the page to load…..
i really wonder why we enter into psdtuts+ after only i realise the site was rebranded…. LOL :)
It’s awesome and very exciting to see how this really is becoming a unified educational system. Awesome improvements, guys!
And that really is amazing that with my same subscription, I can get access to all these great sites!
This is awesome guys. Great work. Loving the new logos.
It is refreshing to find good tutorials on an actual site and brand that looks nice and professional, thanks!
Now if only the Login worked for me…
hai collis,
i wish to become a plus member..
and also one doubt about that??? :)
What is the downloading limit per day/month for the users??????
Max TUTS! :D
When will fla.tuts come out ? I can’t wait :)
@ lawrence77: there’s no download limit at all :)
@ Gotta: Fla.tuts+ is scheduled for launch in March. Keep an eye out!
Need help with the logos?
CG TUTS!!! Ive been waiting for that forever! I love you people. :)
@Paris Vega: The site is using plain old WordPress, got to love the flexibility of WordPress.
While moving everything to one central spot is good for subscribers and whatnot, I think in the overall branding it will suffer a loss.
Each had it’s own bit of soul, now it’s just ae. cg. etc.
But well, as long as the old one exist, good job I think.
I’m a big fan of Envato, that’s why I comment ;)
Great rebranding!
Nice colorschemes and excellent font :)
Good work!
You guys are dominating! all are very impressive and I love the tutplus design.
Its really great & ur hardwork guys……. keep going……..
cheers!
Wicked stuff man, you’ve done a good job!
Very nice guys. Three remarks concerning the dashbord:
1. The widgets should have a link to the *.tutsplus homepages (not only to the latest posts).
2. The widgets should show small preview thumbnails of the posts.
3. Your cookie “iTutsplus-widget-preferences” saves wether the widgets were collapsed or not when the dahsboard was open the last time. Your page rendering script does not take this information into consideration though, showing all widgets in a non-collapsed appearance (even though at the correct position) when revisiting the page.
Maybe you can enhance/fix those issues. Would make your sites even still just that tiny bit greater.
Keep it up, you are doing great!
glad too see that there’ll be a fla.tuts!
although there are sites like flashkit.com, i hope this one will be clean and filled up with quality tuts.
Wow guys, really amazing, really can’t wait for Flashtuts(plus), because that’s what I love the most.
What is CGtutsplus? Computer Graphis… ?
Now, this is The News! Congratulations and good luck with this new site, hope it will double your success!
You guys need to rock on and on and on…
this is great stuff!
I need fl(tuts) Now! :) When it goes live i will open an subscription!
Good job! Very impressive plans for the future and a cool new design. Tuts+ is one of my favorite bookmarks! ;-)
Well done! The tuts+ network is getting better and better! Can’t wait for Cg.tuts+! You guys are awesome!
Envato is the best thing arrived for internet actors
You guys rule, love the new plus login page.
CG Tuts???? Will that be more 3D??? I hope or how bout a 3DTuts+…..
Great work Keep it up
I actually wanted to give a critique to the branding, so please hear me out.
Being a design professional I know how important it is to establish a brand that people will remember. And I also know how hard it is to make one for yourself and be happy with it.
I’ve been seeing the development over the last couple years from now Envato to all these wonderful blogs and have seen you guys change things multiple times. I actually like the last ‘brand’ if thats what you want to call it. Your sites are branded well, and I personally liked the previous logo’s.
I guess I’m not quite sure on why you keep changing things, but a lot of companies keep their logo, not always because its amazing, but it BECOMES recognizable over time. Don’t fall into the footsteps of Pepsi who has the absolute worst new branding out there right now… ha yours will never be as bad as that.
SO if you like this new one. KEEP IT! for at least 3 years or more. Also pick up a copy of Helvetica (documentary on veer.com) and watch what the one gentleman says about American Airline’s logo and how they are the only airline not to rebrand in over 40 years.
love your innovation, keep up the sweetness.
Yeah.. bye bye spoon….
The tuts+ site rocks !
I love all the brand’s design :)
it’s rocking tuts+ !!!!!!!
excellent !!!
Great job guys . I love the new branding and colors .
I’ve been following this for quite some time on Collis’s twitter page.
everything is just getting better and better.
Excellent Work!!
Any1 got link for bold lubalgraph ?