New website and branding for Bluelight has landed!

Hello to the Bluelight community

Today we are announcing the launch of our new website and our new branding.

The purpose of the rebrand is to update and consolidate who we are, our values and mission, and how we look to the world. We aim to attract new people to our site and into our communities, and retain them as members and contributors. We also aim to improve our ratings with Google through emphasizing our expertise and authority in the harm reduction space. We also wanted to look less like we still lived in 2011

A significant change is that bluelight.org now points to a new frontpage designed in Wordpress (you may have to clear your cache or use an incognito window to see it). The forums will continue to be available via their existing URLs that will resolve to bluelight.org/community. These can be accessed via numerous menus and buttons on bluelight.org, as well.

We have re-written our mission, which you can see at the top and bottom of our website at bluelight.org. That is, our mission is to advance the health and wellbeing of people who use psychoactive drugs by hosting, managing and maintaining supportive digital communities. We remain committed to harm reduction across our communities. You can now read the full about statement on our new front page.

You may also notice on the new website that we now have a registered charity, Bluelight Communities Ltd. This organization was created to help ensure security for our ongoing operations and future endeavors.

The new website will host articles that relate to our mission. Our aim is to post one article per week, which we will promote via our social channels and networks. Discussion of these articles will be held at the new subforum Bluelight Article Discussion. We hope you like the new content and get involved in the discussions of it.

You will have seen the new logo and colors. The logo represents two chat bubbles in the shape of a B (for Bluelight). We’ve gone for a minimalist and inclusive design.

Many of us have a strong and enduring connection to the Bluelight capsule logo, and there will naturally be some nostalgia for it. We intend to immortalized the old logo, as well as the other capsule logo we’ve been using on our social channels as an archive [note: we will come back and update this when complete].

We have also now published the Bluelight drug icons that we co-designed last year - these include a capsule in addition to multiple other drug forms and types, representing the diversity of what we cover here. These icons can now be used by the public under a creative commons license.

We have new themes for our forum - Light and Dark. However, if you would like to switch to the old themes, these are still available, for those who don’t feel like changing anything right now Also, as these are new themes, there may still be some bugs in them. While we have tested them and believed we ironed things out, if you see anything unusual or something that doesn't work, please let us know here. Do clear cache if you are experiencing weird logging in and out issues.

We welcome your thoughts on the new direction and thank you for your patience over the years it has taken to get to this moment.

Bluelight Admin

 

The new layout and logo looks glorious. I know it’s a massive task! Congrats Blue light team!

 

Hello to the Bluelight community

Today we are announcing the launch of our new website and our new branding.

The purpose of the rebrand is to update and consolidate who we are, our values and mission, and how we look to the world. We aim to attract new people to our site and into our communities, and retain them as members and contributors. We also aim to improve our ratings with Google through emphasizing our expertise and authority in the harm reduction space. We also wanted to look less like we still lived in 2011

A significant change is that bluelight.org now points to a new frontpage designed in Wordpress (you may have to clear your cache or use an incognito window to see it). The forums will continue to be available via their existing URLs that will resolve to bluelight.org/community. These can be accessed via numerous menus and buttons on bluelight.org, as well.

We have re-written our mission, which you can see at the top and bottom of our website at bluelight.org. That is, our mission is to advance the health and wellbeing of people who use psychoactive drugs by hosting, managing and maintaining supportive digital communities. We remain committed to harm reduction across our communities. You can now read the full about statement on our new front page.

You may also notice on the new website that we now have a registered charity, Bluelight Communities Ltd. This organization was created to help ensure security for our ongoing operations and future endeavors.

The new website will host articles that relate to our mission. Our aim is to post one article per week, which we will promote via our social channels and networks. Discussion of these articles will be held at the new subforum Bluelight Article Discussion. We hope you like the new content and get involved in the discussions of it.

You will have seen the new logo and colors. The logo represents two chat bubbles in the shape of a B (for Bluelight). We’ve gone for a minimalist and inclusive design.

Many of us have a strong and enduring connection to the Bluelight capsule logo, and there will naturally be some nostalgia for it. We intend to immortalized the old logo, as well as the other capsule logo we’ve been using on our social channels as an archive [note: we will come back and update this when complete].

We have also now published the Bluelight drug icons that we co-designed last year - these include a capsule in addition to multiple other drug forms and types, representing the diversity of what we cover here. These icons can now be used by the public under a creative commons license.

We have new themes for our forum - Light and Dark. However, if you would like to switch to the old themes, these are still available, for those who don’t feel like changing anything right now Also, as these are new themes, there may still be some bugs in them. While we have tested them and believed we ironed things out, if you see anything unusual or something that doesn't work, please let us know here. Do clear cache if you are experiencing weird logging in and out issues.

We welcome your thoughts on the new direction and thank you for your patience over the years it has taken to get to this moment.

Bluelight Admin

Congratulations on the work you've done!!! I've been following bluelight for yrs now and I'm in Scotland! Well done and all the best Bluelight. X

 

Fantastic!

 

I love the bl dark Grey. This summer I'm painting my house a similar Grey colour with navy trim. The bl house

 

congrats on the new look and thanks for all the hard work.

alasdair

 

Wow, very nice ! Thank you.

 

When I log on the page is white and different. Once I've logged on it reverts to the familiar light blue classic. Can we choose to individually keep that look? I'm on a fanfic forum which also overhauled its design, but members have the option to click on 'old style' for how the page displays to them and I really appreciate that option.

 

Yes. At the bottom of the page it will tell you the theme used and if you click on it it gives you options and bl classic is there.

 

Yes we kept old themes given we know some folks will prefer them

 

Looks great!

I really like the new front page and the new logo, but I LOVE the fact that there's a forum shortcut directly on Google now lol.

Keep up the amazing work, guys.

 

Congratulations, this looks great! Also congratulations on what must have been loads of work getting set up with registered charity status. IDK why I should be surprised to see such very credible folks listed as directors, haha! I wonder whether it will be possible to get endorsed with tax-deductible gift status under one or another of the 52 criteria such as 'health promotion charity'? Long live Bluelight!

 

It is light and dynamic.

 

Yes we kept old themes given we know some folks will prefer them

I like the new look, I am just very attached to the familiar one. However something looks like when I first get to know it that's how it's got to stay in my book. Ask any autist. Change is the enemy (even if it's stylish change haha). I'm currently freaking out over the local supermarket having a re-fit because everything is now in the WRONG place, so cheers for keeping BL classic as an option.

 

Congratulations, this looks great! Also congratulations on what must have been loads of work getting set up with registered charity status. IDK why I should be surprised to see such very credible folks listed as directors, haha! I wonder whether it will be possible to get endorsed with tax-deductible gift status under one or another of the 52 criteria such as 'health promotion charity'? Long live Bluelight!

Great observation. We don't currently have tax deductible gift status in Australia. We initially looked at the Health Promotion Charity subtype which automatically comes with DGR. However, we would have had to frame our charitable statement as much more 'medical', and we wanted to remain more true to what we actually want to do. And in addition, the vast majority of our cash comes via services which we can simply invoice people for. While donations are amazing, they aren't the bulk of what we do, and via partnership with MAPS, we can still have US tax deductible donations. Many of our personal donors happen to be US based. So the question will be, is it actually worthwhile to seek DRG in Australia? I'm not currently convinced but we can reassess down the track

 

I like the new look, I am just very attached to the familiar one. However something looks like when I first get to know it that's how it's got to stay in my book. Ask any autist. Change is the enemy (even if it's stylish change haha). I'm currently freaking out over the local supermarket having a re-fit because everything is now in the WRONG place, so cheers for keeping BL classic as an option.

Yes. And we do, I believe, have a significantly larger proportion of autistic members than the general population across our communities, so did want to keep such things in mind.

 

I still can't get over how good the new logo is. Congratulations on everything Tron!

 

I still can't get over how good the new logo is. Congratulations on everything Tron!

Thanks for all your help, especially at the beginning - you got us on the right track!

 

I've got to say, while the front page looks nice and all, I think it needs to be made clear that Bluelight is primarily a harm reduction and drug discussion forum. For instance, on the landing page, for a first time viewer its not immediately clear that there is a large discussion forum behind this front facing site.



The confusion is then compounded further when you click on one of the discussion topics listed below:




Which, after clicking, then lead you to sort of generic sounding, non-interactive articles:




So it really takes some deducing on the visitor's part that there is large interactive discussion forum behind this front. If I saw this landing page for the first time I would have never guessed that behind this landing page is a large, interactive discussion forum where I can talk to real people.

Then, after scrolling through that, and seeing the "Register Today" button, I would think that I'm subscribing to some sort of newsletter and would receive emails with articles resembling the one i depicted above.



Frankly, if I saw this landing page for the first time I would be totally turned off, because I'd assume the rest of the site is more of the same. I wouldn't know that this is more than just a place to read articles.

I understand that the idea is to brand Bluelight as something beyond just a discussion forum, but the reality is, that is what people use Bluelight for. People want to interact, talk, be heard etc., not read articles. We have a large forum and an active discord server where thousands of people talk daily. This is not clear at first glance. And when it comes to websites, all you get from someone is their first glance before they make a determination to stay or go.

In any event, at the very least I think it should be made more immediately clear that this is a place to talk with others. The word "Community" is thrown around alot, and membership in this context often means subscribing to a newsletter, etc. It gets even more confusing when you scroll to the bottom and see the "Contributors" section (a list of 5 people), which gives the illusion that Bluelight is a very small organization:



Again, keep in mind that when people visit a web page they make an evaluation within a matter of a few seconds about what they think the site is about. But at a quick glance, based on the language and the content, it is not clear that this is one of the largest interactive harm reduction and drug discussion forums on the internet. It just looks like another harm reduction site where you read articles, donate, etc. A first time viewer would have no inclination that a giant interactive discussion forum and discord server is lurking behind that home page.

The biggest harm reduction value we offer is that any person can ask a question and get insights on their question or predicament from a large group of people all over the world, with tons of experience and knowledge they can share. I feel like that is hidden in the current language. There are tons of harm reduction sites with similar articles and drug combo tools and charts etc, but what those place don't have is a large forum where you can talk to real people. This home page seems more like an "About" page than a landing page.

Also instead of those links to the generic feeling articles, perhaps have links to actual discussions on the forum (then a person realizes, "woah cool, this is a real conversation and if I join I can participate in the conversation").

 

I think very early on it should say something to effect of:

We have a large forum here with XXXX members, where you can talk to people like you and ask questions right now

And if you are a Discord user, we have a Discord server here with XXXX members actively chatting about topics you care about

Or etc, just something to make clear what the assets of bluelight really are. As it is now, none of that is immediately clear, and it appears to be just another harm reduction nonprofit page. I'd take a quick scroll through the page and leave quickly.