Designing a new site
NEW 2009 To all web editors:
See important new website about the CMS: migration
When content owners commission a new site they should contact the web designer (webdesign@lse.ac.uk) for a meeting to discuss any custom design work they require for their site template . Custom template elements will appear on all the pages of the site.
Your template
The following template elements can be customised for an individual site:
- Header and footer images
- Colours
Header and footer images
Possible themes for header images include:
- pictures of LSE/ London (LSE Health and Social Care , LSE Public Policy);
- the subject area of the department (Gender Institute, Law Department);
- abstract images (International Trade Policy Unit);
- logos (CARR, PIC);
- branding used in your other publications, brochures, business cards etc (Cold War Studies Institute); or
- our Generic header.
Before you meet with the designer it's a good idea to think about the source of your images.
You can either provide the images yourself or agree an alternative source with the designer.
Important factors to consider are:
- Images need to be copyright cleared
- The small images used in the header (75 x 75 pixels) need to be simple with high contrast to work well on screen
- We have a fairly extensive collections of LSE/ London related images and can arrange to take custom photos to order
If you want to include your or your funder's logo in the header it is important to mention this in the initial meeting with the designer.
Colours
You will need to discuss a colour scheme for your template with the web designer.
The two key areas you need to consider are the background and the header bars (see diagram above).
Ideally we prefer you to provide us with a set of broad colour definitions (hues) ie blue and black, green and purple, rather than specific colour values. But please note if you want to define colour values, colours need to be chosen from the browser-safe web palette.
Approving the template
After the meeting, the designer will supply a sample page using the colours and images you chose, and you will be invited to provide feedback and suggest changes before the template is approved for launch.
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