Philly.com – the online home of the Inquirer and the Daily News – has a new redesign.

Our man Daniel McQuade of Philadelphia Weekly’s Will Do blog has some thoughts.

Well, well! Philly.com went a redesigned and… well, they got rid of the changing front page via Javascript, so the redesign is an immediate success in one area. Reader Christopher emails: “The site has totally gone retro 80’s pastel with geometric shapes and magic marker headlines. Feels like Miami Vice.” That kind of feels right, though — remember, this is a company that pays both Michael Smerconish and Christine Flowers, who must turn in their columns in magic marker.

Gauging TTN staff, our lame duck Editor, Chris Reber, says it “looks good, but isn’t that the same design as Stereogum?”

No surprise the comments on the redesign’s announcement are full of hating.

Your kidding me right… did you have the website redesigned and outsourced in India? It looks like a 12 year old without any perception and or understanding of color theory or interface usability built this site. And what is up with your header and that bouncing “philly.com” logo? And for the love of god whahy did you use a beige textured wallpaper in your background it look very 1996ish. One word comes to mind “FAIL”!

Of course, that is fairly excessive. Agreed, it doesn’t scream professionalism or the Internet home of the third oldest daily newspaper in the country, but then, the two newspapers’ individual pages are more traditional. The Daily News didn’t change at all – from what I can see – and the Inquirer didn’t change much, though, to be honest, what changes they made seem to be a step backwards. No dominant image and no displaying other new media. Three columns and I am drawn more to their left-most advertising than their content.