MechaBay v2.0

You might have noticed the site sporting a new look for the past few months while we tested the soft launch of our revamped design. Now that we’ve completed the latest planned series of changes, I’m glad to announce the official launch of MechaBay v2.0!

Complete redesign

This is a complete redesign from ground-up that gives us a powerful custom system to handle the data and information, streamlining our workflow. The new architecture fixes the broken layout issues and confusing information boxes that plagued the previous version, whilst delivering a much improved mobile responsive design.

We’ve also enhanced the user experience with several key improvements:

• Improved search functionality with our new search system, though it is still probably faster to Google “MechaBay” and your search term
• Clean information sidebar that presents technical specifications and data in an organised, easy-to-scan format
• Dark mode toggle that gives you control over your viewing preference, replacing the previous automatic switching to dark mode
• Enhanced portals at the home page and the Gundam portal /gundam that serves as your gateways to our articles
• Redesigned homepage that better showcases our content and makes navigation more intuitive

Updated branding

As part of the revamp, I’ve also updated the MechaBay branding by refreshing our brand font and typography system. We’ve embraced the ubiquitous chrome of Gundam and mecha antennas as our brand colour for a few years, but I paired it with the red and blue that are iconic of the main Gundam in every series. The new look tones that back by using yellow and black.

The new typefaces are perfect for the mecha genre, looking more modern while maintaining readability. Our previous use of Rubik and Work Sans worked so well for the genre that other mecha sites started using them—a testament to their effectiveness in this space.

Streamlined workflow

The new system has revolutionised our content creation process. I write articles with Markdown in my Bear Notes app. With this new workflow, I can publish the Markdown files directly to the site. Previously, this involved copying text to a backend editor and extensive manual formatting for images and layout.

This streamlined approach means I can now publish drafts and continue to iterate them over time, allowing readers like you to have a taste of the entries instead of waiting for them to be near completion before seeing the light of day. I’m embracing a new publishing philosophy: publish at 60% good enough rather than 90% near perfect.

The downside is that errors and discrepancies would be more common initially, but the articles will keep being polished through this iterative approach. I believe this trade-off allows for more timely content and transparency in our editorial process.

Enhanced coverage

While I try to get images processed and uploaded as soon as possible, it takes time to search for good quality images and convert them to the correct sizes. This explains the placeholders bearing our logo on some articles, especially those covering more obscure subjects.

The new workflow has already enabled significant content expansion—I published 150 posts from my draft folder over a single weekend during the migration. While our roadmap continues to focus on completing coverage of all mecha in Gundam before expanding to other mecha series, we’re also planning to venture beyond Gundam with articles on other beloved mecha franchises.

Looking ahead, we plan to enrich existing articles with rarer and harder-to-find artwork. I believe this is fair-use of the images to allow more mecha fans to be aware of and appreciate the work of these talented artists. Of course, if you’re the own the rights of these artwork and believe that they shouldn’t be used here, let me know and I’m more than happy to remove them.

These official artwork and fan art deserve greater publicity and I’m working on linking to places where you can purchase the books and to support the original creators.

Community & support

Do join our Discord to chat about mecha and share feedback. Our community consists of about 20 veterans who’ve been with us for over a decade, sharing gunpla builds and memes. We’ve added a dedicated feedback channel where you can help us improve articles by spotting mistakes or suggesting improvements.

MechaBay has been running for 16 years without ads to support the site. It would help tremendously if you support this passion project by buying us a coffee, shopping through our gunpla and merchandise affiliate links, or simply sharing MechaBay articles to help more people discover this resource.

The journey continues as we work towards our goal of becoming the premier source for Gundam and mecha series content. Thank you for being part of this 16-year journey, and welcome to the next chapter with MechaBay v2.0!