You are browsing the archive for web site design.

← Previous Entries

Redesigns 2012: Daily Nebraskan

September 27, 2012 in Redesigns, Websites

The Daily Nebraskan recently switched from College Publisher to TownNews, and along with the switch, a redesign. Here’s the new site:

And here’s their redesign from 2011:

Dan Shattil notes in an e-mail: “We’re still tweaking it but it allowed us to post a Tom Osborne Legacy section we developed last night following the Athletic Director’s announcement yesterday of his retirement. This includes an interactive timeline the staff created last night.”

The black “white space” is a definite contrast, and again, there’s an emphasis on more graphics on the page. Multimedia is also prominent near the top of the page. One thing I’m not necessarily a fan of is putting an advertising banner between the site header and the content. We debated that at the DEN when we redesigned last year. The TownNews CMS allows a lot of “tweaking” within the confines of the overall site design, so it will be interesting to see how the site evolves as they get more time to experiment.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Tags: , ,
1 Comment »

Redesigns 2011: UAB Kaleidoscope

September 15, 2011 in Redesigns, Websites

The Kaleidoscope at the University of Alabama-Birmingham recently redesigned their home page and migrated to a new WordPress CMS.

Production Manager Bill Neville writes:

We were able to migrate content from two old sites, including one that we had used for years originally created by some students in Murray, Ky. at the Pacer Times and another aggregator site we created a few years ago in WordPress.

During the migration, we were also able to preserve all of our Google indexing so there are virtually no broken links or 404s from our archive of stories

Here’s the new site:

Here’s a screenshot from archive.org from June, 2011:

The navigation on the new site is definitely less confusing, and there’s more white space all around. Also, more graphics in prominent position.

If your college news organization has redesigned their website, send me an e-mail (see the left-side rail for the address) or comment on one of these posts, which are archived under the category Redesigns.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Tags: , ,
1 Comment »

Redesigns 2011: Baylor Lariat

August 23, 2011 in Redesigns

As is tradition here, I’m going to be posting a series about college news org. redesigns for the new school year. Whenever possible, I’ll post a “before” and “after” image with each post. If your school news org has redesigned the web site for the 2011-12 school year, shoot me an e-mail at scmurley -at- gmail.com and I’ll include you in an upcoming post. If possible, include a screenshot of what the old site design was like.

You can see past articles in the series here.

As much as possible, each school will get its own post to highlight the redesign. I’ll also mention what CMS they are using, if I can figure that out.

First up, the Baylor Lariat. This redesign was actually launched in January, but I’m including it since it slipped under the radar last semester. The new Lariat is at a new URL (baylorlariat.com) and uses WordPress as a CMS. The new site’s theme is from GabFire.

Here’s the new site:

Baylor Lariat

Baylor Lariat

And here’s what it looked like before:

lariatold

The new site looks much cleaner, with a better use of white space, more visuals, and more information available on the screen. Assistant Media Adviser Julie Freeman said the new site has been met with enthusiasm.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Tags: ,
Comments Off

College online media checklist for a new year

August 22, 2011 in ideas, innovation

Students are returning to campus for the new year. No doubt, the college journalists on your campus are excited to get back to putting out a product for the community. As I’ve done a couple of times in the past, I’m putting out this checklist of things to consider for your online presence.

  • Have you got your news org. online?
  • Do you have a content management system?
  • Have you posted any videos online?
  • Have you included any audio soundbites in a story?
  • Have you done a photo slideshow?
  • Have you put up an audio slideshow (perhaps using Soundslides)?
  • Have you used a map to highlight the location of a story?
  • What about a timeline?
  • Have you used weblogs on your site?
  • Have you uploaded source documents (PDFs, excel spreadsheets, etc.) to accompany a big story?
  • Have you used social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) to market your stories?
  • Have you tracked what others are saying about you via Google Blogsearch?
  • Have you used the web site to post breaking news online FIRST?
  • Have you moved the online editor out of the back office and into a position of authority?
  • Have you allowed comments on your stories?
  • Have you encouraged writers to write for the Web and include hyperlinks in their stories?
  • Are you selling ads for your online site?
  • Have you tried something experimental?

Obviously, I don’t expect you to be doing all of these at once if you’re not doing them now. But if you’re doing some of them (you have a site online, congratulations!), maybe it’s time to consider adding to your online toolbox.

Remember, your online presence doesn’t replace your print edition, but it adds depth to the stories you publish. Point people to your online site. Encourage them to “like” your Facebook page. Tweet and respond to people who tweet back to your Twitter presence.

If you’re short-staffed, pick one thing and try that for a semester. See how much you can build that one thing into a reliable skill for your student journalists. If it doesn’t work, try another thing. Above all, keep pushing.

Tags: , ,
1 Comment »

Redesigns 2010: Daily Northwestern

October 8, 2010 in Redesigns

The Daily Northwestern at Northwestern University in Illinois has redesigned their site. They are a College Publisher network client.

Here’s a screenshot of the new design:

dailynw2010

I do not have a more recent screenshot of the old design, but here is a screenshot from 2007:

dailynorthwestern2007Note the (now endangered species) left nav bar in the old design.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Tags: , ,
Comments Off

Redesigns 2010: Daily Collegian

September 28, 2010 in Redesigns

The Daily Collegian at Penn State redesigned their web site this summer. They are also now using Movable Type 5 with a customized template.

Here’s the new site design:

collegian2010

And here’s the old site design:

collegianold

One of the first redesigns I’ve noticed this year to make use of a background color other than white.

Tags: , ,
1 Comment »

Redesigns 2010: McGill Tribune

September 27, 2010 in Redesigns

The McGill Tribune at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, recently redesigned their site. They are a College Publisher client. This is the first Canadian redesign I’ve heard of so far this year. Here’s a screenshot of the new design:

mcgilltribune2010

Again, I do not have a screenshot of a recent design, but this screenshot is from 2007 (via the Wayback Machine) sans header:

mcgill2007

via @collegepublish on twitter.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Tags: ,
4 Comments »

Redesigns 2010: Montana Kaimin

September 23, 2010 in Redesigns

The Montana Kaimin at the University of Montana redesigned their site this fall. They are on the College Publisher platform. Here’s a screenshot of the new design:

kaimin2010

Unfortunately, I do not have a screenshot of the old design. (thanks to @collegepublish for the pointer)

Tags: ,
Comments Off

Redesigns 2010: Daily Mustang

September 22, 2010 in Redesigns

The SMU Daily Mustang accomplished a redesign of their online-only publication during the spring semester, but it’s worth noting. Adviser Jake Batsell said via e-mail:

  • We switched from a Flash video player to Vimeo in the interest of being iPad-friendly.
  • Our site is geared heavily toward freshmen this week since our reporting classes are just getting started.
  • The SMU Daily Mustang is a Web-only, student-run, multi-platform news site published by the Division of Journalism. We operate separately from the independent school paper, The Daily Campus, although we have been talking with the paper about collaborating more closely.

Here’s a screenshot of the new design:

DailyMustangNew

Here’s a screenshot of the old design:

DailyMustangOld

Both designs are based upon the Revolution News theme for WordPress, but Batsell said:

The “old” Daily Mustang pretty much stuck to the WordPress Revolution News template that we started the site with. The redesigned site incorporates some of those elements, but the students wanted to make the new site more lively and interactive while somehow improving the clarity of design. Our traffic has gone up since the redesign — in part, I think, because the homepage now features more story links in a more succinct form.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Tags: , , ,
Comments Off

Redesigns 2010: Whim

September 21, 2010 in Redesigns

UPDATE: Corrected screenshot of old design, name, and missing new screenshot.

Whim, an Internet magazine at Radford University in Virginia, recently redesigned their site. The site is running on a WordPress CMS, and Editor in Chief Arielle Retting explains some of the design changes in this article.

Here’s the new site design:

new whim

And here’s the old site design:

whimold

Enhanced by Zemanta

Tags: , ,
1 Comment »

← Previous Entries