Vassar’s New Design, New Direction

Individuality is part of Vassar’s identity. We pride ourselves in being unique; therefore, our public face (the homepage) displayed its distinctiveness almost every day. (You can still browse through the collection of banners I have created since my first day at Vassar in the department of graphics). Even though we still love our previous approach, and I will miss designing those banners, we need to step up our game. The challenge is how to top ourselves by moving forward and still keep what we love.

With that kind of challenge, it takes a dedicated team to tackle. Through thorough research (which includes looking at hundreds of colleges’ homepage), careful evaluation, and endless discussion, we came up with a solid design that would give us flexibilities and still be able to remain unique. In other words, we based our design around a central location, which housed easy-to-access information. As long as we keep the essential element in the same position, the sky is the limit.

As part of the team, my main responsibility is designing the layout, and one of the things that still strike me the most about Vassar is the beautiful campus from outside landscapes to inside architectures. Instead of just showing small, quick-to-load photo, I want to make it big and part of the design. On the new site, I used a detailed shot of the Students’ Building to give a vibe of the place where students gathered for lectures, parties, or just to chill out. But using a beauty shot is just one approach. A wide range of styles will be revealed as we move into this new direction.

So what has been changed? We don’t get to design banners on a daily basis anymore, but we get to focus more on the entire web page. So without further delay, allow me to introduce to you our new homepage, and you could read the official statement about our new design. We also revamped the secondary pages for a crisp, clean and simple look and feel. My kudos goes out to the web team. It was an amazing experience working with a group of talented individuals who had brought their expertise to the table. You guys rock!