Twitter has just launched a new site design, finally varying from its trademark sky-blue and cloudy background. One of the biggest criticisms of Twitter over the past few months has been that it seems to be having major growing pains, and since it got a nice chunk of VC money back in July, it seems like it is overdue for kicking up the functionality a bit. There have been signs that this is finally happening: the ability to track topics and a long-overdue people search feature but the site has continued to look like a weekend project of an undergrad CS student.

This is a screenshot of the old site design I tracked down via Google Image Search:

And this is my screenshot of the new design that I think has launched sometime this afternoon

I love the new site design which has also carried over into the facebook application and a bit into the default user pages…kudos to Twitter for getting dressed up for the adult table! The new design makes the site looks sophisticated while still looking fun and easy…it’s about time! Whats is up next? Finally a desktop client developed by twitter?

UPDATE: (11/1 9:35am)  Okay, so apparently I forgot that yesterday was Halloween.  The dark background on Twitter was a holiday change, not a permanent one: the site is back to blue today…although, I will say that I like the black a lot better!  The new homepage design is still in place and I still think it is a huge step forward in making the site more apt for public consumption.  I also really like how the reviews at the bottom of the page are designed like tweets!