When you look at PopCultureTees this morning, you’ll see some major changes. For the past few weeks, we’ve been quietly working on a major re-design and re-imagining of the site.

Here’s why:

When first launched, PCT was a blog in the truest sense of the word: covering t-shirts that I personally thought had fantastic design and talking about what was interesting and new in a growing industry that I had deep roots in. It was my personal method of bookmarking the things that inspired me.

I never imagined that the industry would grow the way it had, or that there would be so many other people — consumers, designers, clothing line owners — who share my passion for great design and who would become followers of the site.

Now, almost two years later, PCT covers the t-shirt industry in earnest. We’ve added contributing writers, forged relationships with some of the best and the brightest designers, talked to the people who run the sites that are giving new artists exposure, and continued to cover the latest news in the world of apparel. We’ve stepped up our game.

This new design is a reflection of that. We hope that it will be easier to navigate, that it will bring our best content front and center, and that it will encourage more discourse and participation of all our readers.

I know there are some people who will mourn the loss of the old design (the hot pink, in particular), but we think the new features will far make up for it.

In no particular order, here’s some of what’s new:

• Wider layout to fit all the t-shirt goodness in. If you’re still rockin’ 800×600… sorry to hear that.
• Visual previews of all the tees we’ve covered, along with better tag browsing to discover new tees.
• More defined categories for content, which is a reflection of our clearer focus.
• More advertising opportunities for clothing lines with some great visibility

We hope you’ll check it all out and let us know what you think!