Day 1 of redesigning cm-life.com: Organizing for simplicity
Today has been a grueling day, the first of many to come over the next month. I began my foray into the CSS/PHP world on WordPress, with the help of CoPress’ Daniel Bachhuber (who, at the end of this, I’ll be sure to thank a thousand times), in redesigning Central Michigan Life’s Web presentation.
The logo you see in this post is what I have so far as the logo of cm-life.com come Aug. 20. I’m sure some will think it looks bland, and I thought so, too, since it originally was just a five-minute image I put together on Photoshop for the sake of beta testing. But I realized something like this was a perfect way to illustrate what our site will be about: Simplicity.
I’m not looking to shake things up with this design. Yes, there will be a handful of new features, but that’s not what this is about. In the end, it is the content that is going to keep our site thriving, and we have to ask ourselves how we can deliver that content in a simple, yet compelling way. If anything, our site will allow us to accomplish that goal. Worrying too much about the new bells and whistles you can add to a Web site can cause you to lose focus of what is truly important: How your content will look when everything is in action.
After several hours of toying with different styles, colors, backgrounds and layouts, I would say I’ve made decent progress on the new site. But, obviously, there is a lot more to get done. Having a logo and header navigation virtually all set is nice, plus some tweaks with story presentation. But I’d say all that is a small piece of the cake. I will provide more updates, I’m sure, throughout the weekend, since I will have plenty of time to work on the site.
Be sure to give your thoughts on the logo and the idea of simplicity, if you can. I’m sure there’s more to cover in that regard.
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The problem with the logo is my eye goes straight to the .com. I personally think the cm-life needs to be a thicker heavier font.
I do like the maroon choice, but the the “Independent voice” font is leaded to closely together. It looks weird that it runs past the cm-life.com on the bottom. Maybe if you flipped it on top.
You can also make it shorter by cutting just saying, “The independent voice of Central Michigan University.” Adding 24 hours to me is redundant and cheesy in my opinion.
I really think you should talk to Dawn and the ad designers and collaborate with them. You really have a good start, but I don’t think it’s the final product.
Something I learned from a really great designer is to get the paper dirty and get every cliche’ out of the way. Then totally start over, because your first 10 ideas are normally unoriginal and have been done before.
Best of luck Brian!
Brian,
I applaud your effort on taking on such an tremendous task – the logo is a great start. I understand your theme of simplicity but I’m afraid it doesn’t stand out enough, that it doesn’t regard that command and presence to hold the top of a webpage. My concern also lies with the spacing between the “CM-LIFE” and the “.com” and subsequent spacing between the entirety of “CM-LIFE.com” and the underlying slogan. Maybe its too much space creating too much separation. Lastly I’m not too enthusiastic about the font choice. Apparent perhaps because it doesn’t command enough space but particularly the “.com” and underlying slogan reminds me of a relic old-aged computer font. However, and again, I do applaud you for taking on this effort and can’t say enough its a great start. I measly through my comments in to the preverbal ring because you stated seeking input. Try throwing this concept/logo design challenge at your designers and see what they come up with, maybe together, or inspired by one of their concepts, you can come up with something spectacular. As always, good job and keep up the great work!
Jessica, Matt,
Thanks for the thoughts. My eye, personally goes straight to CM-LIFE, but 1) the “.com could use a bit of a lighter touch, and b) Maybe I’m just weird. I don’t know.
I’m also going to make the overall font larger and the bottom text readable. “24-hour” could cut, for sure. Really, though, you have to see the logo in action. And you will very soon, I hope.
Part of choosing the font was how it plays on the page itself, and it plays extremely well. We’ll see though. I’m not going to just ignore everybody and leave it the way it is.
Thanks again!