To celebrate its second birthday, Asia Sentinel, the online news website set up by former top foreign correspondents from around Asia, has relaunched with a new design.

The new design is intended to offer better opportunities for advertisers and a more user-friendly environment.

Congrats and good luck to them!

The rationale behind the redesign:

The fresh look features Asia Sentinel’s lead stories more prominently and allows more articles to be displayed on the front page. It also offers better differentiation between sections and enhanced ad positions and options, including banners, large rectangles, and text ads.

Recent advertising deals have seen major brands – including Apple, Emirates, Alibaba, and Citibank – appear on the site, which continues to grow its international readership. Unique visits increased 50 percent and pageviews 30 percent over the past year.

Asia Sentinel, one of the only independent pan-regional news voices, also continues to prove its worth in the international media landscape by breaking major stories and providing in-depth coverage on otherwise-overlooked issues, particularly on political corruption in Malaysia, the disastrous state of the Indonesian transport system, the machinations surrounding the overthrow of Thaksin Shinawatra in Thailand, and a host of other issues across 23 countries in Asia.

“We are looking forward to continuing to grow and both widening and deepening our coverage of the region,” said John Berthelsen, the founding editor. “Our goal is to continue to provide readers with the most informed journalism in the region.”