A Preview of CHN's Spiffy New Design

Okay, we've teased a new design and site philosophy and shown you our new logo, and now this: We're pleased to unveil the sleek new look at the entire site and some of the features that will enhance the end user experience. The initiative, dubbed SB Nation United, is a network-wide initiative that drops very soon. I've had a chance to play around with this a bit in the beta, and let me tell you that I am genuinely very excited about what's coming up around the corner. Here's what SBN United will do for you:

• SB Nation United is going to make our site (and the other sites) load faster and run better, meaning you can get the content you want faster.
• SB Nation United is going to make sure that you're seeing the best and brightest content up front with our flexible layout, modern design, and reduction of clutter.
• SB Nation United is going to make the experience on the site run seamlessly from every platform, whether mobile, tablet, or computer. No matter where you are, the experience will not change.
• SB Nation United will not take away or change any of the community elements you love like FanPosts, FanShots, and Game Threads. In fact, it is my belief that this initiative will enhance all of these great features.

Still not sure what this all means? Screenshots after the jump.

Here are some examples of what the front page layout could look like whenever you point your browser to CHN. The layout is very flexible and there are even a couple of options not pictured here that we can use.

If you've ever spent time on sbnation.com, you'll recognize the StoryStream on the right. That's right - StoryStreams are coming. This is a great way for us to cover ongoing stories in a clear and concise way, and it's good for readers in that you can find all of the content on a given subject in one place. I can see us utilizing this for matches. The preview, Q&A, Predictions League, game thread, instant reaction, and any updates on developing news (like lineups or injuries) will all be found in one place.

One thing I'm really excited about is the ability to keep stories on the top of the site even if we add other updates. As you know, our current set-up requires that any new post goes at the top, and the stories sit in reverse chronological order. This new system allows us to continue to post new articles and keep important ones at the top, if we so choose.

Something that's not pictured here, but is a really cool deal, is that we can grab stories from other sites and place them on our own site. If Graham at We Ain't Got No History writes a scathing takedown of Alan Pardew after a contentious Newcastle-Chelsea match, we won't just link to it - we'll bring the content straight to you. It's one of the advantages of being part of such an awesome network of blogs.

And here we see our five-up cover. We also have the ability to feature one story on our cover if we feel that it's worthy of such attention.

This is an example of a (rather lengthy) StoryStream, with all of the updates collapsed. Each update has a preview of its content, and you can obviously expand the parts that you're interested in reading.

As I mentioned earlier, FanPosts and FanShots are still an integral part of the site. They now get their own dedicated pages.

Mobile users will benefit greatly from this move. This is what it will look like on a phone.

And this is the tablet version.

Finally, a look at the whole page. What do you guys think?