CREDIT: STEPHANIE LAI
To follow the rebranding of the logo, Fanshawe is conducting an overhaul of its website.

Anecdotal feedback that Fanshawe College’s current website isn’t meeting the needs of anybody kick-started the plan to redesign.

Executive director for Reputation and Brand Management Tony Frost says it was a long time coming.

“We’ve long known that there are some accessibility issues with the website,” he said. “[Accessibility standards] continue to change for the better, so we need to respond to those accessibility changes.”

The website bridges the college to the likes of current students, prospective students and alumni.

“The website is our single most important contact when it comes to interaction with any of our audiences,” Frost said. “It’s often the place of ongoing interaction, so it has to function.”

“The expectation of the people who interact with the website are dramatically changing, so it’s no longer a place where you would get some information – they want to do stuff. They want to register for courses, they want to calculate what fees are going to be, they want to contact somebody. We haven’t really structurally changed it for four years now, so certainly it’s time.”

The college reigned in local design collective ResIM to take the lead with design.

“We wanted somebody who had experience in governance, training, in website development, we wanted a strong IT background, we wanted a strong design component,” Frost said. “At the end of the day, [Res- IM] had the strongest bid for us – they met our budget needs … and they gave a terrific presentation, and we’re pleased that they’re local.”

“It is convenient that they’re local – it’s a bonus. We’re really happy about that.”

ResIM’s connection to Fanshawe stems beyond just being local. Maxim Siebert – the lead designer heading the project – is a fresh Graphic Design graduate.

“How much more connected could you be when you go through a program at a school and now you get to come back and really play a significant role in the way your school – your alma mater’s – website will be,” Frost said.

Siebert says he’s in an exciting position.

“I’m pretty excited considering it’s the college I went to and now I get to lead the redesign of it,” he said. “I think it’s a pretty exciting spot to be in considering I just recently graduated.”

Siebert says he’s mainly focused on the site’s functionality.

“I’m more concerned with the functionality and making the site really something not just that you go on and retrieve information from,” he said. “We’re thinking of applying design for context –depending on where your location is when you visit the website, we’ll show you different content.”

As for design – minimalism.

“As for the look and feel of the design itself, I think it’s just the matter of keeping it really clean and similar to the brand – considering the just redesigned logo,” Siebert said. “We’ll be following a lot of the brand guide to do the website, but a clean, minimal look is what we’re hoping for.”

Siebert will walk through the halls of Fanshawe again but with a new role.

“I actually went [to Fanshawe] for a meeting, and it was definitely a little strange, but I’m excited to be in this position,” he said. “I don’t think anyone gets this opportunity, so I’m looking forward to it.”

Frost says the site will relaunch in the fall as the first phase of three in the whole process.