this morning i launched a realigned version of the jackson community college home page. it features rotating designs with a student in the foreground and a classroom image in the background, not unlike msu’s home page, which took it’s design directly from cornell. this seems to be a trend in college web marketing and thus part of the motivation for the change in our site.

it was my intent to save any major layout changes until the current version of the site had been live for a year, which would be may of this year. our marketing department was researching a new brand and after the board of trustees and administration got wind of it they wanted it started immediately. so we, meaning the marketing department of which i am a member, scrambled to put together something from what we currently had in our library of promotional material. the four different designs on our home page are the result of that effort.

when you work for a community college who is trying desperately to reconnect with it’s community, there is little time for in-depth and lengthy planning. you get an idea, you get it approved and you go for it, then clean up the mess later. it’s not my preferred way to go about things, but it’s where i am right now.