Redesign MobileIndustryReview.com's theme

Mobile Industry Review

Mobile Industry Review ("MIR") has been live for 5 years. The site provides a mix of daily opinion, news and video to 250,000 mobile industry executives and fanatics.

Originally the site was a 'news' site -- but over time it's morphed to heavily centre around me (Ewan) the editor. I publish a mix of news, videos and opinion posts.

I've lost my way with the design. I created the current one about a year ago. I was aiming for an impressive looking site. But it's just got annoying for me now. Too many boxes, I think. Too many grey lines. Too much red text.

It is a glorified blog. At one point we almost went Engadget-style and started writing about everything. But over the years I've honed it -- so it's effectively an outlet for my own writing. That said, I don't want it to look like a blog.

I think I need the site to look like a cross between a blog and a news site.

- Senior executives in the mobile industry
- PR & marketing people who work in the mobile industry

When you visit the site, you need to immediately get the impression that the site is credible, professional and influential. I do a lot of consulting off the back of the site so it does need to look good.

Most of the readers do so via the RSS feed so the site is more for new visitors and those trying to evaluate whether Mobile Industry Review is any good. For that reason, I think we could potentially be a little bit more experimental with the layout.

The audience will form an opinion within a few moments of visiting the site. I need them to react positively. I need them to consider the site credible, relevant and professional.

I need you to deliver me a a new site frontpage, category and post page. I'd like you to spend most of your time on getting the frontpage right though.

Required Elements
These elements need to stay:
- The MIR logo (I've attached a high-res version, or pull it off the site as it stands)
- The useful links -- put them wherever you think works
- The banner ad at the top needs to stay somewhere near the top

I've tried to pack the existing frontpage with news and stories to make it look busy. But I think the eye just gets confused so I'm really looking forward to seeing what you think. Do what you want with colours -- but do consider that the site is well known that rather bright Red colour you see used in the logo and header.

See the 'Smartphone Obsession in Marketing' section? With the three video thumbnails and a logo? Just under the headline bit? And the 'MEF Americas 2010' ones? Those are sponsored video sections that need to remain somehow and in the same general style (as sponsors have paid for that).

I typically publish 3-4 posts per day, so please make allowances for this in your frontpage look.

Some summary points about the design:
- Remember it's a news/magazine site
- Don't be afraid of using whitespace and clean lines
- Less is more -- clean up my crazy cluttered interface!