Top 10 Biggest Website Redesigns of All Time
Posted September 11, 2009 in Showcase, Web Design 52 Comments »
In honor of the new FreelanceFolder redesign, we decided to create a list of the top 10 most beautiful, most dramatic, and some cases just biggest website redesigns we could find. Some of these designs showcase monumental leaps in design, whereas others portray a more subdued and calculated approach to redesigning a major website.
Let’s take a look at the list:
#10. Yahoo
After going through a number of big redesigns over the years, Yahoo has found itself in one of the most difficult positions it has ever faced. This new redesign represents a serious effort to help stem the long, slow slide into obscurity.
Old Design:
New Design:
#9. Amazon
Amazon is one of those companies that redesigns on a daily basis, so it’s sometimes difficult to even tell when they’ve made a big design change. That said, there was a really big step a few years ago when Amazon made the move from flat buttons to the new rounded interface we are used to today.
Old Design:
New Design:
#8. LinkedIn
Always a foundational website in the social media world, representing professionals and business, LinkedIn has never really found the same growth as the more personal and interactive websites. This redesign represents a few small steps in that direction — toward interactivity — along with a number of important usability enhancements.
Old Design:
New Design:
#7. Facebook
This redesign is here not because it is visually dramatic, but because Facebook is the second highest trafficked website in the world, and even layout changes like this are enormous when you consider how many users they effect. Not to mention, it seems every time Facebook redesigns something there is an enormous outcry from users, both positive and negative.
Old Design:
New Design:
#6. Ebay
Even though they are well past their gloried-times, Ebay is still a major player on the internet. Over the past several years they have been tweaking and adjusting their homepage for maximum impact and usability. I think it is actually getting better.
Old Design: 
New Design: 
#5. Whitepages.com
Much less popular than many of the pages in this list, Whitepages.com is still fairly large compared to most sites. Combine that with a substantial (and expensive) redesign, and they come in at number five.
Old Design: 
New Design: 
#4. MySpace
Despite losing to Facebook in the website battle of the century, MySpace has shown that they are still capable of growth and improvement. This redesign is an example of them flexing some design muscle.
Old Design: 
New Design: 
#3. Wordpress.org
In a list about redesigns it would be practically criminal to leave out the web platform that designers love most. The homepage of Wordpress.org hasn’t changed much over the years, but their last redesign seriously improved the looks of the site and helped bring them inline with modern styles.
Old Design:
New Design:
#2. Twitter.com
From a company that seems only capable of angering its users with change, this was actually one major redesign that everyone seemed to love. Not only is this a visually impressive change, it also represents a fundamental shift in focus of the company towards search.
Old Design:
New Design:
#1. Whitehouse.gov
Nevermind the cultural and other changes that are associated with this site, from a purely visual standpoint this is a striking redesign of one of the world’s most heavily trafficked websites.
Old Design:
New Design:
More Web Design Resources from FreelanceFolder
If you like this list of website redesigns, you might also enjoy these other web design posts from FreelanceFolder:
- 15 Key Elements All Top Web Sites Should Have
- 30+ Examples of Big, Bold, and Beautiful Website Navigation Menus
- 10 SEO Techniques All Top Web Sites Should Use
- 15 Incredible WordPress Theme Customizations
- 10 Essential Plugins Every Modern Wordpress Site Should Have
What do you think?
Did we miss any major redesigns? Do you disagree with any of the choices showcased here?
Let us know in the comments!
About the author: Mason Hipp is an entrepreneur, marketing guru, and writer. He blogs about life and business at FreelanceFolder.com and is co-author of the Book The Unlimited Freelancer. Follow him on twitter @MasonHipp
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52 Comments
divinefusion
September 11th, 2009 at 12:30 pmGreat collection. These are great examples of the change in ‘web’ times and it shows that successful companies are designing forward : )
Shevonne
September 11th, 2009 at 12:33 pmLove this! It’s always great to see how sites have evolved throughout the years.
Tyler
September 11th, 2009 at 12:37 pmThese are really great.
The white house is definitely one of the most impressive changes.
The new postal service site at http://www.usps.com is a pretty amazing upgrade as well.
simply life
September 11th, 2009 at 1:15 pmA great collection. The prominent changes are marked. A few have changed their layout since you collected them.
Dustin Lakin
September 11th, 2009 at 1:38 pmGreat list, its amazing how much better everything looks now. Will be interesting to see how the big websites will look in 10 years. Thanks for the post.
dp
September 11th, 2009 at 1:47 pmThe white house one is interesting. A better design for a better administration. However, I would have added an accent of red here and there instead of the orange. Red, white and blue, get it? ;)
simplee
September 11th, 2009 at 7:21 pmChange is good!
Jerome Pettiford
September 11th, 2009 at 10:55 pmI think you got all the good ones.
Semblance
September 12th, 2009 at 8:22 amTo me the most significant redesign is http://www.bbc.co.uk – screen shots of the previous design can be viewed here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/03/refreshing_changes.html
Láďa Durchánek
September 12th, 2009 at 12:02 pmApple redesign from old glossy look is also mentionable. Current Apple website is one of the most polished designs.
Lorne Pike
September 12th, 2009 at 4:47 pmI agree with Lád’a that Apple was worthy of note. Another very significant change came just yesterday with Ecademy. While not well known in North America, it is a very well known social media site elsewhere. They completely revitaized their look, and jumped from an exceptionally old interface to a much more friendly and modern look. Kudos to them, and to you for this post. Thanks!
Fernando Emmanoel Borba
September 12th, 2009 at 5:05 pmWhat a great list. But I would change the list a bit. The best “extreme makeover” goes to.. Twitter.
Jal
September 12th, 2009 at 5:37 pmThese are very good transformations of websites that you showcased here. I think all that is needed to make a complete and aesthetic make over is:
Thourough understanding about what the content is and then designing a proper layout.
Using subtle colors. Bright colors are seriously not an ‘in’ thing these days.
Using lot of advanced technologies like Ajax and Javascript to make things done with minimum effort.
Providing a layout which looks nice at any resolution on any browser.
JL
September 12th, 2009 at 8:05 pmsourceforge (at: http://sourceforge.net/) also has been refreshed.
Jasmin Halkic
September 13th, 2009 at 12:07 pmVery nice collection :)
Matt
September 13th, 2009 at 12:09 pmYou left ESPN off. I’d include them and drop Twitter, which was a big change in appearance but not much else.
Edwin
September 13th, 2009 at 12:25 pmNice collection, although most of these have been re-designed primarily because of Usability issues.
The Whitehouse site is insane. I met the artist and creative team that created that during the last 6 weeks of obama’s campaign.
Miguel Tavares
September 13th, 2009 at 12:43 pmSurely a very interesting list there! Thanks for sharing.
Cymberly
September 13th, 2009 at 1:14 pmLike the article.
What about southwest.com? They redesigned their site so that users could book a flight straight from the homepage with no additional clicks.
Rahul - Web Guru
September 13th, 2009 at 1:20 pmFor me, Facebook, wordpress and yahoo will top my list.
Zábavná videa
September 13th, 2009 at 5:24 pmAmazing and nice. Thanks!
Eliza
September 13th, 2009 at 7:09 pmThe MySpace redesign is a prime example of over-designing imo. They never seem to hit the mark, not to mention their users pages are hideous…
I love the new White House web site, from a purely visual standpoint it is beautiful but it is also a lot easier to navigate and is being successfully used as a powerful political device as well (whether or not that is appropriate is another debate, haha). Also agreeing with an above poster about the USPS website.
Thanks for this interesting post!
Tutorial Lounge
September 14th, 2009 at 3:23 amreally amazing collection you sharing with us. thanks
Mike
September 14th, 2009 at 3:48 amLots of interesting changes and adaptations of different websites. Its amazing how much people react to change though, particularly thinking of the Facebook redesigns. But if they didn’t make those changes they would simply get left behind.
Terris Kremer
September 14th, 2009 at 6:11 pmI especially like the whitehouse.gov redesign. In particular, the way they updated the old president with a newer, more modern one was an excellent choice – both aesthetically and from a user friendly standpoint – in my opinion.
I suppose that’s debatable though. ;)
Adrian von Gegerfelt
September 16th, 2009 at 6:30 amStill, MySpace’s produces the UGLIEST user profiles because it lets users change anything, but have terrible markup behind (what happened to div IDs and classes?!). Also, use still “theme” your page by injecting CSS rules in the “about me” field.
Vitezslav Valka
September 16th, 2009 at 8:47 amTwitter needs much more than this simple visual redesign. Facebook made a great progress in what they did. I see a lot of work behind that change.
Hegyeli Hunor
September 18th, 2009 at 8:21 amThe whitehouse.gov design is the best.
Joe Stevens
September 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pmI was worried that no one would ever visit the Twitter page until I saw their redesign. It makes Twitter’s homepage very useful now. Brilliant move on their part.
Paul
September 20th, 2009 at 8:01 amI agree with Lád’a that Apple was worthy of note. Another very significant change came just yesterday with Ecademy. While not well known in North America, it is a very well known social media site elsewhere. They completely revitaized their look, and jumped from an exceptionally old interface to a much more friendly and modern look. Kudos to them, and to you for this post. Thanks!
Fast List Building Blog
September 21st, 2009 at 4:55 amAmazing! Its great to know and see these websites pretty good changes. Thanks for the update.
Jan Middleton
September 21st, 2009 at 9:54 pmIt’s really good when big names show us the way to update, rethink and refresh our image. The world’s a changin’
JohnONolan
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:38 amVERY tenuous title, but good post all the same :)
dizelbox
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:46 amIt’s real class
shastew
December 21st, 2009 at 7:50 pmThis is interesting, but some more analysis would be useful. I’m not a website or page designer, nor am I a graphic artist, and it’s not obvious to me what the intended benefit or impact is of each change made to the example websites. I’m sure someone knows…perhaps they could chime in?
Reduziert
February 11th, 2010 at 7:20 pmI really like the Amazon redisign. It still looks a bit like 1998, but alot cooler ;)
Max
March 13th, 2010 at 3:06 pmTwitter looked better with the old design in my opinion, same goes for Ebay…
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