The All New It's Nice That

Good afternoon and welcome to the all new It’s Nice That. As we mentioned on Friday the site has gone through some exciting developments and we’ll explain a bit more about them here.

We of course welcome any comments and suggestions regarding the new site, and will get back to any queries or questions as soon as we possibly can. The nature of changing over means there will be a few glitches and teething problems, but we hope to sort them out as soon as possible. If you spot any please send us an e-mail at hello@itsnicethat.com

Longer Posts
We now have the ability to post longer articles that link through to a dedicated page for that project that will include more images and information on the work or artist featured. Wherever you see ‘read more’ at the end of a post you can click through.

Noted Section
On the right hand side of the new homepage you’ll see we’ve added a ‘noted’ section. This is for little bits and pieces that we think would be of interest that in the past we wouldn’t have had room for.

Advertising
Up until now everything we have offered through the blog has been completely free of charge and we think that it is essential that this is still the case with our re-launched site.

We do not intend to get rich from It’s Nice That, but we also don’t want to go hungry because of it either. The newly developed features that you will be able to enjoy on the site, as well as hosting the increased traffic that we now receive, has naturally meant that expenses since we launched way back in 2007 have increased. For this reason It’s Nice That now needs to generate a little bit of revenue so that we can continue to bring you regular posts and features daily.

The last thing we (and you) want is a site full of adverts, pop ups or any other annoyances. So, we have decided the best way to make enough revenue to keep going without losing your trust or interest is to place a tiny ad space in the right hand column of every page which will be managed by The Deck and we hope you will find their content on the whole useful and relevant…

The banner in the top right of the homepage will also be used to give you regular updates on new It’s Nice That projects and features.

Features
You’ll see on your top menu bar the Features section, this allows us the freedom to aggregate related posts into one area on the site. In there at the moment you’ll see the guest poster feature, where we will start to archive their interviews and posts, there are also more details on the It’s Nice That exhibition held last year and some creative projects we’ve done for Nike Sportswear. This will be added to over the coming months and we’re looking to have a book review section as well as working closely with some other companies and institutions that we think you’ll be interested in hearing about. Have a click around and get familiar.

Guest Posters
It’s Nice That thrives on outside input, and none is more valuable than that of our weekly, hand picked guest posters. We are going to continue to allow one person a week the freedom to pick 5 things that they’d like to show you, but are looking to shed a little more light into what they do. So, along with their posts we will also be asking them some light-hearted interview questions every Monday so that you can put what they like into a little more context. Again, all posts and the interview will be archived in a handy dedicated section.

Publication
However much we love the internet, and reading articles online there’s still no substitute for holding a beautifully printed object in your hands. The first It’s Nice That publication, released alongside the website re-launch, documents a selection of the most interesting blog posts from the site’s first two years as well as introducing some other features for future issues. Although we recognise their importance, we’re not interested in simply adding to the reams of articles written by design journalists on subjects that have been covered before, instead we want to publish some more unexpected content written by current practitioners. We will be releasing the publication every six months and expect issue two to be released in October 2009.

Talks
Talks by creatives are not a new idea, but we see a real possibility to push them in a slightly different direction, relevant to It’s Nice That. We’re planning to host a monthly evening of talks by creatives about their work, but more importantly (as with the magazine features) what they’re looking at, and what interests them. These talks will then be documented as high quality podcasts online, building up a new feature to be archived on the website. Look out for the first talk being available to watch online towards the end of April.

Shop
Our online shop will release two collections a year. These collections will be released as Spring/Summer in April and Autumn/Winter in October and consist of anything from posters and prints to books, zines, apparel, toys, objects and beyond. All of the objects you see on the shop will only be available to buy from us and have been specially commissioned by us, making sure you get as special and unique an item as possible.

In our introductory collection sees our first ever T shirt by Print Liberation, a print by Antohony Burrill as well as a summer bag by Demelza Hill.

Mailing List
We also finally have a mailing list form to fill in if you’d like to receive regular updates from us about things we think you’d be interested in, no junk guaranteed. Just click on the ‘mailing list’ tab located at the bottom of any page.

RSS Feed
As with the previous site you’ll be able to subscribe to our feed, this has changed though so pleas update any details you’ve got, again, a link to this can be found at the bottom of every page.