Yahoo! design innovation team axed.

The entire Yahoo Design Innovation Team, aka yHaus, has been axed en masse, Portfolio.com has confirmed with one of the team’s former members.

“Yahoo Design Innovation team has been shut down completely,” wrote Doug Fritz, a former full-time staffer for the team, in an email.

The team had been working on next generation design projects. This week, more than 1,000 Yahoo employees have been let go as the troubled Web portal struggles to cope with operating costs that are rising much faster than revenue is growing.

The layoffs mean the end of a font of design innovation at the beleaguered web giant, which is currently trying to fend off a hostile takeover bid by Microsoft.

The link to the site where their work had been displayed, now redirects here, although portions of their blog remain up.

Earlier in the day, Andrew Vande Moere, an assistant professor of design computing at the University of Sydney who blogs at design blog Information Aesthetics, first reported the rumor, citing an anonymous tip.

A commenter named Ben Long, presumably a Yahoo employee who still has his job, wrote on the blog, “I’ll miss your shining faces in the office. Best of luck, and I’m certain your talents will land you in extraordinary circumstances in the future.”

A Yahoo spokesperson has not returned requests for comment. Developing…

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