We hinted at it a few weeks ago and now our redesign/rebrand of the Zend Framework site is live! Though this is a partial launch (the manual redesign should launch shortly) we are thrilled about this contribution to the Framework Project. Today we’ll give you the backstory and over the next week I will highlight some of the details and thinking that was involved with this project.

The Backstory
About a month ago, Roy attended the Southern California Linux Expo and came back thrilled at the idea of the Zend Framework for PHP. We use PHP almost exclusively and loved the idea of finally having a robust framework the whole community could get behind. We took a close look at the framework site and realized this would soon be the PHP framework everyone was craving.

However, we also felt the framework site had failed to convey the potential of this product. The framework needed better branding and clearer messaging to reach out beyond the PHP community. If you had put the current framework site up next to the Ruby on Rails site, it was obvious who was doing a better job of selling their framework. There is a whole audience of web designers/entrepreneurs fixated on the idea that new and exciting web applications are built using Ruby on Rails. The truth, however, is far from this perceived reality and yet Ruby continues to have a huge mindshare amongst the “web 2.0″ crowd.

So, we contacted Zend and expressed our ideas and intentions regarding the site. Before we knew it, the redesign/rebrand was approved. Over the next few weeks we worked together with Zend to implement a new brand and site design that, beyond having a more contemporary aesthetic, clearly conveys the excitement and community growing around the framework.

In the coming days we will discuss the redesign in more detail and also post an interview with the good people at Zend regarding this framework, the rebrand, and their caffeine beverage of choice.