If you've visited the site in the last couple of days, you've certainly noticed some changes taking place. This shouldn't come as a real surprise, though. Today saw a big chunk of the changes I talked about in my last Hot Topic on the changes facing deviantART's gallery structure.

Today's set of changes spell out the end of the Indy Art gallery as we've known it since deviantART opened to the public on 7 August, 2000. It's long been felt by key members of the administration that the very selection of the tem "Indy Art" for that particular gallery was itself the cause of a lot of the miscategorizations that we found ourselves dealing with on a daily basis. Of course, the solution must sensibly address the issue of the intuitiveness of the term.

So, today, we proudly announce the Traditional Art and Digital Art galleries! Of course, in this context, Digital means, "assisted by or created entirely through the use of a computer," and Traditional means, "not digital."

The changes today were more than just a partitioning the Indy Art gallery in this fashion, however. If you were to put the Digital Art and Traditional Art galleries together, you'd find that there's a lot more there than there was before. The new galleries have been enhanced, their categorization hierarchy deepend, giving many more subcommunities here at deviantART room to stretch out comfortably.

For instance, the 3-Dimensional community now has a comprehensive subgallery to submit work into, which will be much more valuable to people than the single subcategory that 3-Dimensional had under IndyArt.

These changes are not without tradeoffs, of course. Because of the nature of some of the changes, not every category was able to be cleanly migrated into the new galleries. Read the list of notes below carefully, and then review your deviations to ensure that they all belong to the categories you feel are most appropriate.

Pixel Art is now a subgallery of Digital Art. This is not a demotion of that gallery's status, but rather a clarification of the logic used in defining the hierarchy of categories.

Animations, Dark, Electronics, Isometric, Light, and Minimal in Pixel Art no longer exist under the revised Pixel Art gallery. Deviations that had been submitted into each these categories have been assigned to one of the Non-Isometric categories somewhere in Pixel Art. Please review anything you may have submitted into these categories which have been eliminated to see if their present location is most appropriate.

Anime and Anthro have been split, such that there are anime and anthro subcategories in appropriate locations under both Digital Art and Traditional Art. Since these categories were mixed digital and traditional under Indy Art, there was no clean way to move these categories into the new system. Everything in Indy Art: Anime and Indy Art: Anthro have been moved to Digital Art: Drawings: Anime and Digital Art: Drawings: Anthro respectively. This means that traditionally drawn anime and anthro are now in the wrong section, and it is advised that you review your gallery and move such pieces into the appropriate Traditional Art gallery if need be. This is an inconvenience for many, I know, and I apologize. This is one necessary step towards ultimately establishing better facilities for these subcommunities, and it has been carried out so that only some of this art needs to be recategorized.

Deviations formerly in Indy Art: 3 Dimensional are now found in Digital Art: 3-Dimensional Art: Unsorted. Please take the time to revisit these deviations and recategorize them appropriately.

Indy Art: ANSI and Indy Art: ASCII have been moved directly to Digital Art: Text Art.

Indy Art: Freehand is now Traditional Art: Drawings: Unsorted. Please take the time to revisit these deviations and recategorize them appropriately.

Indy Art: Vector is now Digital Art: Vector Art: Miscellaneous. Please take the time to revisit these deviations and recategorize them appropriately.

Indy Art: Traditional is now Traditional Art: Miscellaneous. Please take the time to revisit these deviations and recategorize them appropriately.

Indy Art: Photo Manipulated is now Digital Art: Photomanipulation: Miscellaneous. Please take the time to revisit these deviations and recategorize them appropriately.

Indy Art: Oekaki is now Digital Art: Oekaki: Miscellaneous. Please take the time to revisit these deviations and recategorize them appropriately.

Indy Art: Abstract is now Digital Art: Miscellaneous: Abstract.

Indy Art: Art Poetry is now Digital Art: Miscellaneous: Visual Poetry.

Indy Art: Fantasy is now Digital Art: Miscellaneous: Fantasy

Indy Art: Graffiti is now Traditional Art: Graffiti.

Indy Art: Minimalistic is now Digital Art: Miscellaneous: Minimalism.

Indy Art: Miscellaneous is now Digital Art: Miscellaneous: Miscellaneous.

Indy Art: Males and Indy Art: Females have been merged into Digital Art: Miscellaneous: People.

Dark, Light, Medieval, and Technical from Indy Art no longer exist. Deviations submitted into those categories are no longer assigned to a category. Please take the time to revisit these deviations and recategorize them appropriately.

Indy Art: Political is now Digital Art: Miscellaneous: Political.

Indy Art: Pop Art is now Digital Art: Miscellaneous: Pop Art.

Indy Art: Psychadelic is now Digital Art: Miscellaneous: Psychadelic.

Indy Art: Scenery is now Digital Art: Miscellaneous: Landscapes & Scenery.

Indy Art: Science Fiction is now Digital Art: Miscellaneous: Sci-Fi.

Indy Art: Comic Strips is now Digital Art: Drawings: Cartoons & Comics. Please take the time to revisit these deviations and recategorize them appropriately. Submissions here may belong more appropriately to Traditional Art: Drawings: Cartoons & Comics.

Indy Art: Game has been merged into Traditional Art: Drawings: Fanart. Please take the time to revisit these deviations and recategorize them appropriately.

There's a lot to take in here, I know, but this system is designed to optimize the navigability of deviantART and set things up so that, when we make further changes, we can create "pseudogalleries" that stitch together some of these separated galleries without muddling the rigor of the categorizational logic.

I also have some less radical changes to announce on this same theme of renovations. Some of you may have missed the Fonts, Textures, or Tutorials galleries since about two weeks ago. Fear not! These three galleries have become subgalleries of the Resources gallery! You won't have to move anything around regarding your submissions in these areas, though. These changes were perfectly clean and transparent, unlike what we had to do with Indy Art above.

So, definately look over the new galleries and then look over your deviations! Make sure they're all where they should be, and then carry on being devious!