Matt's notes on the competition

MassArt
Homepage is clean, left nav gives access to all layers of site immediately
The overlapping navigation sections are confusing
Site nav seems to be very inconsistent throughout, requiring memorization of iconography and relearning nav structure every few pages
Redundant landing pages on sections creates unnecessary site depth
While each section features images, which is good, images load slow and are too small to be illustrative

RISD
Clean home page, image changes upon reload making content fresh
moving links visually interesting but hard to navigate
type is very small
expanding news section on homepage is very nice
video promo on homepage is nice
large images at the top of subpages is a nice way to showcase the school
cascading left nav makes site depth easy to negotiate

SMFA
Flash homepage way too active, it's distracting
Changing content is great, however this change too fast to read some of the text
nav remains consistent and clean throughout site, which is nice
site depth is kept minimal, linking between subsections and other main sections easy
plenty of images
structurally, this site is really nice -- that the design is a bit ugly would be my only major complaint

PRATT
What is up with the big ugly news block on the right?
my first response to the cascading left nav was that it was nice and easy to use, but with use it becomes cumbersome. Why limit all of your site information to a narrow column?
the upside of the singular nav/info structure is that there is almost no site depth

PARSONS
Clean, easy to read homepage
consistent nav
very few images, all of them small
site depth very limited, easy to find way around
portfolio link in top nav leads to a section featuring a lot of images of student work - very nice

SVA
Wow, that's ugly.
The changing images are a good idea, but too busy
navigation is small and hard to find
once you get into the site, the nav is consistent and fairly easy to negotiate
It looks like they were trying to go for a messy/arty look, but the narrow column design limits navigation and content. They tried to solve it with orange arrows, but the overall design is so messy it's unclear immediately that this arrow is information
the actual site content is pretty clean, with minimal site depth. nav is a mess.

SCAD
I like how clean the homepage is, images change at a reasonable pace
popup menu is nice, except that the Programs of Study dropdown is a bit overwhelming
quick links to Scad Atlanta and other programs on the right is a nice use of space
this site is all about getting the job done, it's clean, deep but easily navigated. nav is easy to find, easy to use.

Montserrat
Easy to understand nav, good depth with relatively straighforward travel through site
Was this designed in 1994?

AIB
Our current site stacks up pretty nicely to the competition, nav is clean and consistent - perhaps too busy, but always there and understandable
Site is not as "arty" as SMFA, RISD or SVA but - as SVA's site proves - too much "art" can be a bad thing in a website
3 tiers of navigation is awkward but becomes clear after 2 or 3 page views
consistency of design makes it easy to figure out what is where - however why does consistent have to also mean boring?
Right now, I think our site most closely compares with SCAD - it is an online catalog that feels clean, simple and easy to navigate. I think one of our complaints about the site thus far has been that the cleanliness and simplicity make it feel too institutional.