There’s a lot going on behind the scenes at Salon these days, and as a way to tell you about developments as they happen, we’re introducing a new blog: Inside Salon. You’re reading the first missive but the blog will ultimately reside in the all-new Salon we’ve been busy building for the past several months.

That’s right — there’s a redesign on the way.

This is a major undertaking, Salon’s first redesign in several years. The new site not only looks better and fresher, it’s much more agile than the current Salon, allowing us to present new content in new ways, and enabling you to more easily find, follow and share the stories that interest you most. Among the highlights:

• Nicer to Look At. An overall aesthetic redesign to simplify the look and improve the site’s navigation and make it more concise. A Full Menu tab will unveil one-click navigation to all areas of the site.
• Easier to Read. We’re narrowing the column for Salon articles to make for easier reading. Stories will now immediately expand to their full length with a single click of the Continue Reading link.
• Richer Home Page and Sections. Both the home page and every section cover are being redesigned to let us react more fluidly to the day’s events. We’re also redesigning each section page to present more content. With the redesign we’re creating a more flexible stage from which to present our coverage. The home and section page layouts will continue to evolve over time as we make use of these capabilities.
• Comprehensive Topic Pages. Most Salon stories are about issues and topics of ongoing interest. We will now surface all of our coverage on a given topic on one page, simplifying the reader’s ability to keep up with everything from healthcare reform to “Mad Men.”
• Useful Author Pages. We’re proud of our team of reporters and writers and believe it’s important that you know more about them and about what they’ve written in the past. These pages will also make it easier for you to follow your favorite writers and know when new pieces have been published.
• Better Tools to Share Salon. We’re adding an array of new tools to make it easier to share articles, follow authors, follow topics of interest. We’re making it much easier to e-mail an article to your friends or Tweet about that article to all your followers.

And that’s just scratching the surface.

We’ve been conducting a very small private beta in recent weeks, but we’ll be heading into a public beta phase in the next few days, which will entail inviting a few thousand people a day into the new site. We’ll be starting with our Salon Premium members before gradually opening it up to the larger audience, and we’ll be responding to bug reports and feedback along the way.

Redesigns are inherently disorienting, but we’re excited about what we’ve built and eager for you to see it.

One important note: This is just the beginning. We’ve got many ideas for both fine-tuning and expanding on the new site. We look forward to hearing your thoughts along the way. 

Salon broke new ground nearly two decades ago when we launched one of the first “online magazines.” At the time, nobody knew what to make of this scrappy new site — and most predicted it wouldn’t last long. Salon has not only lasted, but thrived. Today, we’re embarking on another experiment with our first-ever video platform.

We want to capture the spirit of risk and exploration that permeated Salon back in those “Wild West” days of the mid-1990s. Salon Studio will feature original and curated videos ranging from political satire to musical performances to explorations of sexuality. Some of the productions will be highly polished, some of them will be raw and gritty — but we don’t want any of it to be predictable.

Salon has always believed in not just truth, but beauty. Our original design back in 1995 – a clean, art deco look created by Salon’s first art director, Mignon Khargie – immediately set Salon apart. Now Salon is once again separating itself from the cookie-cutter digital clutter that defines too much of the Web with a bold and striking new design.

We asked designer Kelly Frankeny to create a news tabloid as imagined by Coco Chanel. Frankeny — a globetrotting designer who is often dropping into beleaguered democracies in Africa and Latin America to work her wonders for embattled newspapers – responded to our challenge with a sophisticated and dynamic design. A brilliant and sassy blond Texan, she has created a new Salon as big as her personality. And yes, while invoking the brassy urgency of a news tabloid, the new design also conveys the elegance of the House of Chanel. Both Frankeny and the new Salon know how to use red lipstick and a simple black dress for maximum effect.

As winter thaws, the hot spots of the Occupy movement are seeing the first ripples of resurgence. From New York to Oakland, Calif., crowds are returning to the streets, but will the plan for a May 1 General Strike spark an American Spring or will the movement splinter and fade into Tea Party-like irrelevance? Watch the Salon webcast with Occupy correspondent Natasha Lennard to hear her thoughts on these issues:

To participate in upcoming Salon webcasts with staff and friends, join the Salon Core community.

Salon has covered the Trayvon Martin killing relentlessly, but none of our coverage has struck a nerve like the article “Is My Son the Next Trayvon?” by the chief operating officer of Salon Studio, Quincy McCoy. As a black man who escaped the rough neighborhoods of his youth to provide a better life for his child, Quincy’s article conveyed the constant anxiety suffered by all black parents — regardless of class.

Quincy recently hosted an online conversation on the epidemic of violence against young black men. Here is the full video of that discussion:

To participate in Salon’s webcasts with staff and friends, join the Salon Core community.