Design Philosophy
We are very excited to announce that we have a new theme available in our Georgetown shared templates! This new theme, affectionately known as 1789, after the founding year of the University, brings the beautiful appearance of the georgetown.edu to all content editors. The new theme incorporates major improvements in architecture and scalability as well as the addition of new components used by our existing sites.
This theme is best suited for promotional sites with an emphasis on media and imagery and will benefit from content adjustments including rewriting headlines and descriptions to conform to character length limits, rethinking the layout of landing pages, and choosing compelling visuals that work with a new set of requirements accompanying the design. The 1789 theme is not well suited for information-heavy resource-type sites, which are a better fit for the current theme they are using.
The following are some basic tips when working with the 1789 theme:
- Unless a strong narrative exists, it’s best to not fit everything on a page if it’s becoming content-heavy. Content-heavy pages can be intimidating—instead, separate your content into more digestible pages
- Focus on how you want to tell your story for each page you create.
- Layout patterns for content you can reuse throughout your site.
- For marketing-focused sites, your homepage and landing pages should be organized in a persuasive manner.
- For utility-type sites, your homepage and landing pages should be organized and explained in a more direct manner—less of a narrative.