Hello, friends! Remember how I told on Facebook a few months ago that Marcio was working on version 2 of the website? Well, I have to say we wanted it to include super new (and still secret) features, but as this may take some time until it’s totally ready and as I thought it wasn’t fair that we could enjoy all the beautiful pictures published here on the brand new design and not you, we decided that the new version should be public already. So here it is! I am personally very happy with it, and I guess this says a lot, as I’m usually rather “reluctant to change”. When I look at this new version, I just feel like the blog got dressed up! Anyway, I hope this isn’t too much of a revolution for you regarding your habits here – don’t be scared, everything is meant to make your life easier, not more complicated!

Besides, a new blog look cannot come without a new Facebook page or Twitter look: the few images of Marcio and I displayed here were taken by Lakshal Perera while he was in Paris a few months ago, and the dress was kindly lent by French designer Delphine Manivet. These pictures are amongst the ones I am going to use from now on on the different social medias, so you may actually see them a lot! And stay tuned, this afternoon I’ll post another and quite different series of pictures of us!

So here we go, I let you now see the first few photos of us, and discover the new features of this new version (some are actually not new but I doubt you all knew about them!). And… you can already get prepared for v2.1! :)

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• One of the most important change concerns the menu bar. When scrolling down, it becomes an easy access to all the post-related tools you like to use (Facebook likes, Twitter shares, comments, etc), so that you don’t need to go all the way down to access these; when scrolling up, it goes back to being the good old menu bar you already know. Try it out!

• Marcio added two new view modes: in addition to the regular view, you can choose to see the posts in grid view (one small image and no text), or in list view (one image + an abstract of the text content). Both modes enable you to see many posts on just one page; the former actually allows you to browse all the posts on the blog really fast, while the latter, showing more info about each post, can help you decide which post you’d like to open!

• One other feature—that some of you may already have discovered by themselves—is that, when reading a post, you can go from one picture to the next one using the up and down arrow keys. If you’re tired of scrolling (which happens to me all the time), that’s a good alternative. You can try it on the set of pictures below! The left and right arrow keys will make you jump to the previous and next page (or post if you’re in a page dedicated to one post).

• Besides those features, there’s a new sidebar, the search bar has been redesigned, and the favorite page also. Go have a look! And for those who already have a WordPress account, you can now log in to the blog with your own account.

• We already had a mobile and iPad version of the website, but we’re now totally satisfied with it. If you possess such a device, you can try to see what the blog looks like on it!

• Finally, for the ones that are being notified of the blog updates by email, you’ll see that our “newsletter” has a new look also! I hope you like it!

Please leave us your feedback on this new version, and make sure to be back later today for the second post!