can we make our Oct 24th meeting from 1-3?

Hi all:

I am coordinating all of the notes I have received from you and others I have invited into our process.
There is a lot of overlap which I will share. Thank you for all your feedback on the competition.

Marketing and Communications wants to meet with us to show their Liquid Matrix technology to
advise our process. Rather than make a seperate meeting, I'd like to suggest we tack this on to our
meeting on Oct 24th.

Can you stay from 1-3 (instead of 1-2) on Oct 24? I still need to ck with Stan and the rest of
the group. Thought I'd ck with you first.

Kristina

Ryan's take on the competition-

RISD-
The navigation changes from the splash to the landing pages. Changing from in-the-photo to below-a-masthead-photo and a left hand menu. I also think that the moving menu text on the front page is annoying, and while it might be fine for the undergrads, there are links for parents, grad students, and people looking to give money. They deserve something more traditional. I also like the videos, but they do not have any prominence on the screen I had to really search to know they were there. All in all, the only part that led my eye anywhere was the moving text and the flashes of saturated orange on an already warm colored photo (all the photos were white balanced towards warm) They then under-used these contextual clues on the landing pages, with no moving text and various shades of orange which might or might not signify a link. Overall, I think it's well structured, and delivers the right message. "RISD is focused on the students who study here." And the pictures and video testimonials do that job. However, the consistency of color meaning as well as video-game-y finnicky navigation leave something to be desired.

Mass Art-
The design isn't liquid, it stays anchored to the left side regardless of how big your monitor or computer window is. The menu isn't very inviting and seems institutional, and the blurred desaturated photo behind the text is a very poor solution to problems of readability. The pages that follow are text heavy and uninteresting. All in all, I find it unimpressive.

School of Visual Arts
While I like how they have new/current work and exhibitions available I found the design, cluttered and unwilling to make hierarchical choices. I can't help but ask where they are trying to lead my eye. The color scheme is uninviting and we get an unfortunate amount of "type-soup" with the many changing banners in the center column. If you add the amazingly bad new continuing ed campaign (page curl? a teddy bear artist?) to the story, I truly am wondering what has happend to SVA.


Boston University College of Fine Arts
One of the best landing pages of the group with a color scheme that seems to carry on the color meaning to the different fine arts departments. While it might be a little bit sparse and have a lot of whitespace I think it makes the site feel elegant.




Parsons – The New School
A bit too "tech" feeling for me. But is easily navigable and well laid-out. While the BU CFA felt more elegant this feels a little cold.








Montserrat
So boring I thought it was 1998 again. The logo, the colors, the whole site put me to sleep. They are in serious need of a redesign.







SCAD
Not bad though a little generic. I think they could do more to lead the eye to the navigation and to make stringer use of color. All in all though this is a clean well done site with good navigation.







Pratt
Let me add my voice to the "I hate this site" chorus. Not much to say other than the right side navigation when seen on a wide screen 24 inch LCD becomes ludicrous. Right-align done totally wrong. The Pratt name often becomes unreadable, and the expanding left nav obscures the page and becomes unusable. This is just bad.

Abby's Comments

SVA:
Pros:
I like that they integrate the student work right on the undergraduate “department” pages.
I like the About SVA section because it shows the interaction between the city, the school, the faculty and the staff.
Cons:
The front page is too busy; I like the idea of the background but when you combine it with the changing images it becomes too much.
Their portfolio guide, for example, are a little wordy; even the shorter version of the guide is hard to take in at once.
The whole site is wordy, when you get down to it.
It is easy to navigate but there is a lot of info so if you’re just browsing it can be overwhelming.

MassArt:
Pros:
Easy navigation at the top and bottom of the page
The online “campus tour”
Extensive faculty bios by each major
Their news page is actually relevant!
Cons:
I just don’t like their website design overall. The text is too small, the entire right hand side of the page is not being utilized, it’s too text heavy.
The online campus tour is a good idea but the actual video is cheesy!

SMFA
Pros:
Clean and easy to use navigation
Seems to have content that is updated frequently
Three different galleries of work to choose from
Cons:
A little boring.

RISD
Pros:
Their student videos are fantastic because they give a wide variety of viewpoints.
Overall it is easy to navigate but still text heavy.
Their student profiles.
Cons:
Their main navigation, with the floating links, is irritating.

Pratt:
Pro: They have student galleries.
They do a good job of matching the language on the site with their target audience.
Con: Ugly!
Their navigation doesn’t really work for me, doesn’t seem easy to use and I had a hard time finding certain information.
Not easy to use and not very attractive, including the galleries.

Parsons
Pro:
Navigation is easy to use
Their perspective student’s page is nice and would be very helpful to a visiting or interested student.
Con:
The design seems a little dated, a bit boring.

SCAD:
Pro: The first impression of this site was positive … until the image changed to something ugly.
The least amount of text on the sites I’ve seen so far which makes it easy to read and navigate.
Cons:
Too many options might be overwhelming to prospective students who just want to request a catalog, etc.

Montserrat
In general it has a dated design and isn’t engaging.
The information is clear and easy to read, on the portfolio page, for example.

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.