A note on what many of our members have noticed: for the past month or so, we’ve had a new design and layout for the AIGA SB site.

Like the previous iteration, this template is something that AIGA National has asked all the chapters to use for a uniformity of general branding. Also like the first version, we can customize it to suit our needs—colors, layout, etc.—and we’ve done a little of that here and there. As the 16th of 69 chapters to make the switch, we are well ahead of the curve.

The main benefits of this new template are:

• more responsive on all devices: no wasted layout space, no extra fluff. It’s also much less garish than our initial upgrade in late 2012.
• better quality/sharper images: events and news items images can be larger now (2x size), for retina-friendly displays
• dedicated Community Events section for goings-on around town

The major differences are layout-related:

• navigation is now to the left, and you have to click the little 4-line icon near the logo at top left to make it scroll out. This is gangbusters for mobile & tablet, but different than what we’re used to with desktop.
• our email signup is now in the footer, but as always we have a “contact” page in the main menu that uses the same form.

We’re still working on some image-related kinks, namely replacing some older main page, news & event images so that they don’t pixellate at larger sizes. Individual pages get large hero images so this will affect most everything, but newer stuff is nice and big.

Also in the pipeline: a pre-2013 events archive, fleshing out the poster we showed off in May at the leadership retreat. All the features of the previous template are there, including member portfolios, integration with the national AIGA site, etc.

As with all works-in-progress, it’ll look great when it’s finished, right?