50 years after the Central High Crisis, the city of Little Rock will be all over the news today. My University being in Little Rock, we’ve devoted alot of time to campus events, panel discussions, and community programs surrounding the anniversary.

“Anniversary” just isn’t the right word to use here. But for lack of a better word, I’m seeing it often.

A few months back we were thrown the task of creating a web presence for our university’s involvement in the event. The goal of such a web presence being a calendar of those involvements.

My design is ok. It could be better. The archival photography page was interesting to develop, because sifting through old photographs from our Library Collections Department was an amazing experience.

In the process I learned a great deal about several of the photographers who were on-hand 50 years ago, specifically, Will Counts, the man behind numerous photographs but one in particular that made front pages around the world:

Will Counts was able to take the photograph not only because he was a great photographer, but because he wasn’t screened out of the area by local authorities. Counts, being a local, purposely wore casual clothing instead of wearing a suit like all the other photographers. For all intents and purposes he appeared to be part of the mob.

Another of Will Counts photographs, taken of a mob walking towards the High School, is even more amazing:

The presence of mind to see those two boys and walk around behind them, to capture the scene from their point of view, …now that’s photojournalism.

If you’re a communications or web person at a university and you’re only going to read one article this month, even this year, …read Fear and Loathing in Web 2.0 by Andrea Jarell.

It’s in the September issue of Currents Magazine.

A quote from Andrew Careaga is in the article:

“letting go of control or the illusion of control is something educational institutions in general haven’t quite got a handle on yet. We’re in the throes of some heavy-duty cognitive dissonance here. How can we embrace the integrated marketing idea of consistent messaging while also embracing the dis-intermediated conversations of the blogo­sphere? It’s a conundrum.”

Another great tidbit:

“worrying about being “on message” is of no consequence if nobody is actually reading the message.”

Thanks go to Karine from CollegeWebEditor for getting early web access to the article.

“Instead of shouting “Go HOOSIERS,” this campaign subtly conveys the diversity of the IU student body by allowing students to share their personal IU experience in their own words.

From the Office of Creative Services comes a Youtube Series called Hello, My Name is Indiana University.

Somehow, in spite of being so incredibly short-staffed, they found the time to write about their project. It must be tough, having only 8 art directors in an office of 33 dedicated to creative endeavors at one university. How can they possibly get it all done?

We’ve all suffered through the experience. Being completely lost and disoriented is supposed to be part of the college freshman experience? It’s a right of passage, um, right?  Then again, the metropolitan university where I work has an overwhelming majority of commuters and non-traditional students. They want to show up for class and afterwards, drive home. Strolling around leisurely with nothing better to do? Not so much.

Renovations, demolitions, name changes, parking tweaks, you name it, …our campus has changed considerably over the past two years, and our map has grown quite outdated as a result.

Our map isn’t that bad. It could be alot better. Then again, it could be alot worse. The goal has always been to condense important information down to a minimum, enabling the map to be printed on one 8×10 sheet of paper. Many larger universities, keyword: larger, don’t have this luxury, so our situation is unique.

Still, fitting everything on a single page presents a few design challenges, the most obvious being small type. I imagine a new student driving around campus, glancing down at our current campus map, attempting to read the 6 point type on a crumpled printout. This task calls for mutant vision and/or a jeweler’s loupe, and I envision this person running into a telephone pole or a pedestrian.

So, tasked with simply making a few minor “updates” to our map I’ve instead committed additional time to the slippery slope of, yes, improving it.

Before:

Current new map in progress:

As to the old map’s biggest shortfall, tiny unreadable text on the bottom, I’ve tried to use the space better and spread things around, making it possible to make the copy larger.

It’s a relatively simple project, but one that will make a big difference for new students on campus. It’s rather nice to know where you are, and where you’re going.

Also on the horizon is our new 3-D campus map, which we plan not only to use in print form but also as an interactive piece. Big plans. Big plans. A few months out:

During this process, I’ve been looking around at what other universities are doing with campus maps.

The University of Wisconsin meant business when they embarked on their new map project:

The press release about the map’s development is quite interesting.

“The new map was unveiled this year after more than a year of work by students, faculty and staff. Its new design is the product of extensive study and consideration by staff from the Campus Information and Visitor Center (CIVC), University Communications, Facilities and Plant Management, and the Department of Geography. Steve Amundson, director of CIVC, led the group.

…Mark Harrower, assistant professor of geography, began the redesign as a project for his advanced Geography 575 course. Faced with a map that had been basically the same for more than 25 years, the class took a fresh look at how visitors navigated through campus.

…The class modeled different map features by imagining themselves as pedestrians, as visiting lecturers, as handicapped drivers or as grandparents visiting students. It was also important to consider the three-dimensional views of pedestrians and drivers. For example, the location of bus stops and the direction of a bus route are important only when on foot.”

Also very noteworthy is Stanford University’s Campus Map, which is integrated with Google Maps.

Also making headlines from Stanford is the new Google Earth 3D map, which won Google Earth’s College Mapping Contest.

“More than 300 teams from across the United States and Canada took part in Google’s “Build Your Campus in 3D Competition,” using software developed by the Mountain View company to create digitized models of their campuses. The entries of the seven winning teams have been added to Google Earth, which integrates layers of satellite imagery, maps and 3-D buildings.”

“…The team’s digital modeling of Stanford can be viewed by locating the campus on Google Earth and then clicking on the “3D buildings” button. Those without Google Earth can see aerial views of the models by going to Google’s “3D Warehouse” website and searching for the Stanford University collection.”

Are there other interesting campus maps out there worth noting? What plans are there for improving your university map?