A year and a half ago, an immersive learning class looked at what kind of content was really being produced by students at Ball State. They came up with sections, color schemes, and typefaces.
Last summer, my colleague Bradley Jones worked to create HTML mockups that were sent to the vendor responsible for actually running this site, SNWorks.
These were small steps.
In the fall, when I became creative and digital director, I worked closely with both Bradley and SNWorks to make the site functional. We worked through tagging, sizing and sections.
I met with leaders from our student media organizations to work through the new site, and explain how content was going to be presented in a way that was much more beneficial to the reader. I explained that the redesign isn’t structured like a newspaper — because our website isn’t just for a newspaper.
I worked with Betsy Meyer, as well as the entire advertising and creative staff, to establish a branding and marketing plan. We found places for sponsored content and much more engaging, beautiful advertisements.
I developed a new logo for “The Daily.” We’re starting to shed the “Unified Media” brand for our online product. Our student media organizations still operate as unified media, and our lab is still called the Unified Media Lab, but we aren’t producing “unified media.” We are unified media.
Again, these were small steps.
Then, on Wednesday afternoon, we launched the redesign.
This was the giant leap.
In an instant, ballstatedaily.com became not only more beautiful, but more functional. From the homepage, you now see content from all of our student groups, organized by what content is, not where it’s from. At 9 p.m., when NewsLink Indiana broadcasts, you can see their live broadcast bannered across the homepage.
We welcome your feedback as we perfect this transition. If you have questions or comments about the redesigned and reorganized site, please email me: tabird@bsu.edu.
We look forward to continuing to connect the campus, community and country through unique and engaging content.
Sincerely,
Tyson Bird
Creative/Digital Director
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