Lore

Props to Parson’s

Coming from a background in higher ed, I know how frustrating it can be to get all of the right pieces onto a huge site with so many stakeholders giving opinions and feedback – and make it look great?! Now THAT’S a tall order.

The New School at Parson’s just finished their site redesign and I think they did a great job. They’ve used a color block grid and rollovers (each image block rolls over to text and vice versa) to really pull out some features and to strategically hide other important sections behind an enticing image. (Note: this is a gradual redesign so I’m basically just praising the home page and top level pages…)

 Parson's New School Home Page
As you can see, they’ve pulled out their new international location in Paris, the Continuing Education program, their transparency through Open for Discussion, and more. Some “drier” topics are hidden behind some of the most eye-catching and interesting images. For example, the New School Milestones is hidden behind a fashion runway model finale and Cutting Edge Research behind a psychedelic swirl.
Screen Shot 2013-05-31 at 4.52.39 PM
BUT THE COOLEST THING is the Organize and Randomize buttons at the top. Clicking the randomize button will stack all of the blocks and then you, yes YOU, can drag and drop them where ever you like. Whaaatttt?!?! And then, when you are (finally) tired of playing with the layout, you can click on Organize and the blocks shoot back to where they were originally. So. Fun.
Organize/Randomize
And thennnnnn…….
Screen Shot 2013-05-31 at 5.00.50 PM
Other features I like:
A) Subtle navigation
B) Feedback link along the left side of the browser
C) Social media tags appended to the bottom of your browser screen
Screen Shot 2013-05-31 at 4.52.51 PM

 

Disclaimer: This is merely praise for great design. We did not create this website. Just sayin’. And while we are making disclaimers….I also happen to be taking classes from here so this is totally biased…

 

Over and out!
Lauren

Check out my employee spotlight if you want to see how weird I am.