UPDATE 12/4/06: It looks like the site was just updated. And the new design looks great. I still do not see why the site had to go down for several days, but atleast it was not weeks.

One of the web designer blogs I have always admired the most has been Simplebits.com. Recently however the site has been coming up as unformatted html. At first I thought it was a problem with my browser cache, but after clearing the cache nothing. Then I assumed it must be the server and it will be fixed in short order. I was wrong.

I was shocked today when I visited the site and saw a new note stating that “This site is intentionally (but temporarily) un-styled while we build a new brand and site design.” Dan Cederholm has done great designs for very large companies, and the only way he has to design a new site is to work directly on his live files?

I can not imagine any reason why you would effectively cripple your own website to “remodel” when it is so easy these days to develop sites separately and in parallel with your live site. This is like the Web 2.0 version of the “Under Construction” animated gifs of the 90′s.

Even this site, with my limited resources, can afford a cheap Linux server to run my own development site on. In the past I have messed with the live site too, but this blog is far from a professional blog, and I do not make my living developing websites.

This is not really a big deal, it was just a little disappointing to see a site I admire, and have learned a lot from, do such a lazy thing as this. Let’s just hope that Dan does not start a trend in web development seeing as he is quite an influential player in the Web Design world.