The Evolution of the Laravel Welcome Page

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The release of Laravel 11 and Laravel Reverb will happen on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. Along with major updates to Laravel, we'll get a new welcome page when creating a new Laravel application with laravel new or composer.


I thought it would be fun to see how the welcome page has evolved over previous versions of Laravel. Whether you are new to the framework or have been around a while, there's something special about creating a new Laravel project and seeing that welcome screen!


Laravel 11




Laravel 11 will feature a light and dark theme, which looks gorgeous and inviting. It has a vibrant background, clean icons, and a welcoming feel that inspires creativity:


Laravel 11 welcome page (dark mode)



Laravel 11 welcome page (light mode)



Comparing Laravel 11 (top) to Laravel 10 (bottom)



Laravel 10




It's hard to believe that Laravel 10 was released a year ago on February 14, 2023. Over the last year, we've received countless amazing new features and quality-of-life updates. Here's what the welcome page looks like with a fresh Laravel 10 installation:


Laravel 10 welcome (dark mode)



Laravel 10 welcome (light mode)



Notably, the Laravel logo is centered and is only the logo mark. Laravel 9 and 8 had a left-aligned logo + Laravel text mark:


Logo mark changes between Laravel 8 and Laravel 10



Laravel 8




The welcome page featured in Laravel 8 was the first time we saw a significant change since Laravel 5.x. Laravel 8 was released on September 8, 2020, during the period of time Laravel released a major version every six months:


Laravel 8 dark mode featuring updated Laravel branding



Laravel 8 light mode featuring updated Laravel branding



Laravel's branding was technically updated around the Laravel 6 release. However, Laravel 8 was the first time the new logo was introduced on the welcome page. It featured four main areas/links: documentation, Laravel News, Laracasts, and prominent ecosystem links.


Laravel 5.5




Between Laravel 6 and 7, we didn't see any significant changes to the welcome page, but at some point in the 5.x releases, the welcome page included links to documentation, Laracasts, Laravel News, Forge, and GitHub:


Laravel 5.5 welcome page



Laravel 5.0




Laravel 5.0's landing page had the words "Laravel 5" and rendered a random inspiring quote using the Inspiring facade:

Laravel 5
{{ Inspiring::quote() }}




Laravel 5.0 welcome page



Bonus: Laravel 4.2




Laravel 4.2 had a minimal welcome page featuring a nostalgic logo (base64 image) and folder structure, which included this hello.php file, with the text, "You have arrived."


Laravel 4.2 hello page




The post The Evolution of the Laravel Welcome Page appeared first on Laravel News.


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