Layout change for the TT front pages

Just checked in this morning and it looks like the homepage has transmogrified again. :-(

Not to be over-critical, but I just can't get used to this new layout. Maybe it's just too many changes too quick for me to digest.....

1. There are too many different font sizes and a busload of text über alles so the frontpage looks like a text jumble/crossword puzzle.

2. The news articles appear to be glommed together with the rest of the recent discussion topics which makes it hard to find the real news instead of topics like "How to deal with a psycho neighbor". Also the photos next to the news article are way too small.

3. The 3 columns and blocks seem ill-defined, the left column goes for miles but just whitespace at the bottom 3rd of the middle and the right column (Google Ad) and there is bordering around Partner Newsfeeds blocks but not the others?

Again, sorry I do not want to be picky, but I liked the old design much better and found the frontpage easier to read.
Interested to hear what others think about the new design!

-Peace Out

There's a front page?

The new design certainly has more space for generating advertising revenue, but it's not bad really once you get used to it as you click quickly past it to the forum.

Doesn't do much for me. Kind of busy and hard on the eyes.

yeah, far too busy for my tastes too

As part of my war against the exclamation mark, I'd like to see this sentence changed, what with it being grammatically incorrect and everything:

It should read "Welcome to Toytown Germany, the English-language community website for Germany." If there has to be an exclamation mark, it goes at the end of the complete sentence, not halfway through it.

I didn't have a problem with the new header because, as far as I could see, the only way it actually affected me was by the "View New Posts" link moving from the right to the left. I hate change, but even I could cope with that. The new front page isn't doing it for me though. And the wiki is now so buried away that it's basically dead, which is a shame because there is a huge amount of useful information on there that most users don't even know exists.

I too prefer the old layout. The new one is very vertical, and the left column looks a bit like a shopping list. IMO it helps reading if the text is organised in little blocks (i.e. less space between the lines and more space between different paragraphs like the teasers).

I completely agree.
When I opened up TT this morning, I had to double-check that I was on the correct page. The front page has WAY too much going on. There are no clear spaces between the "forum discussions" and the "news articles." It's way too much text on the front page and it all runs into eachother.

The layout prior to this was my favorite.

Too hectic, too busy. That is life. Fits Munich.

Its ok to keep it fresh, you get your head around going back to the way you want the layout to be for the forum and then its all good, till they do a number on us again

Try as I might, I keep landing in the discussion forum.

The new layout frightened me, so I clicked away as quickly as possible.

I also liked the old layout better; it was much more readable.

Truth be told, even The Local´s site is more pleasing to the eye . What have we come to?

I had to double-check I was in the right place too. It looks cheaper to me.
But - it's quicker, probably because there is less clutter. Which is fine by me.

All the photos are squashed out of shape and there's now a tacky dating site advert dominating the right hand side of the page, just like your average porn site. The ads on Toytown used to be discrete, I guess money is now more important than style.