A shout out from Canada. Geoff Lister, alumnus, notes that The Ubyssey of the University of British Columbia has redesigned their web site with a responsive design. Here’s what the site looks like now:

And here’s a snapshot of what the site looked like this July from archive.org:

It’s hard to judge the changes to the site based on the link from the Wayback Machine, but the new site does look well organized, with plenty of white space and clear organization. Be sure and follow the link above to check out the whole front page.

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The Michigan State State News launched a redesigned site yesterday. Here’s a look at the new site:

Omar Sofradzija, editorial adviser/permissions manager for the State News, pointed out the following new features of the site via e-mail:

• A responsive design, which also replaces the previous separate mobile edition. The site simply reconfigures itself to fit any size tablet or mobile phone. It’s a format we believe is the future of news mobile, and one that better integrates and promotes online content consistently, regardless of the user’s choice of media.
• A multimedia box that primarily teases with what makes multimedia strong: visuals, with secondary headline text available by scrolling over a target image.
• Video that works across all platforms (no “must install Flash” headaches for the audience).
• Social media — which has been a major source of visitors to statenews.com as of late, representing as much as one-third of our site traffic — is more prominently featured on the site.

Please keep in mind this site is essentially in a permanent “beta” mode. We will continue to offer updates as they become available.

And yes, this comes as part of the Gryphon CMS offered by SNworks, a division of The State News.

Here’s what the old version of the site looked like in July, 2011, courtesy of the Wayback Machine:

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The Doane College Doaneline has redesigned for the fall semester. The new version features a colorful branding of the site name and nav bar, more information above the fold, and larger photographs.

Here’s the new version:

And here’s the previous version:

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It’s that time of year again, when the fresh paint is revealed on college media web sites. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be showcasing the changing “face” of college news on the web. If your organization has a new web design, send me an email at bryan.murley@gmail.com. If possible, include a screenshot of the old design for comparison.

First up is the UT-Arlington Shorthorn, which moved from a self-hosted Joomla CMS to TownNews. Here’s the new look:

And here’s the previous version:

The new version is a few pixels thinner.

The main differences I can see:

The flag now has BIG branding and a new motto – “UT-Arlington’s main news source since 1919″.

The nav bar now has a grey background.

The section headers are color-coded, as seen in this screenshot of the second screen:

The sections are also now vertical and asymmetrical. And there is more variety in headline sizes.

The social media icons at the top of the page are bigger, and the top banner advertisement has been moved out of and above the flag, replaced by traffic, weather and a calendar in the flag.

UPDATE: Adam Drew also sends along a screenshot of the HTML5 mobile version of the site:

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