Halloween 2011 Roundup

02 Nov 2011

I’m deeply disappointed in you. Let’s just get that out of the way, shall we? This year’s Halloween noted a stark drop off from April Fools Day shenanigans on university home pages by my measure. We only have a few times a year to flex some design muscles, and I think Halloween is one of those times to have some much needed fun and blow off some steam. Yet very few schools seem to have gotten involved this year.

Here’s a look at some of the examples I was able to find of Halloween inspired themes on homepages (along with an honorable mention video from UWGB, thanks @tsand!). Vassar, as seems typical, sets the standard. They’ve created a trend of involved Halloween designs, going not just for the visual, but also the interactive. I love Rochester’s photography as well (but that’s normally true anyway). What’s double interesting, four of the six schools below were also featured in the April Fools roundup (Vassar, Rochester, Radford, and William & Mary). Obviously that’s not an accident, and speaks to their teams’ planning and coordination. Good on them. Fistbump fireworks and all. But there is an implied lesson there, that you do have to plan for this stuff and think about it – it’s not just thrown together at the last minute.

So what’s up? Are we too busy? Unwilling to take the “risk?” Lack the skills? Resources? Has Halloween just jumped the shark? Why didn’t your school do a Halloween design, and are you planning anything for a future holiday? Share in the comments (and let me know of examples I missed)!

: College of William and Mary

: Vassar College

: University of Texas at Austin

: University of Rochester

: Radford University

: University of Alberta

Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by tracie7779

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About the author

For six years, Michael served as the Director of Web Marketing at Pittsburg State University. Currently, he is the Senior Interactive Developer at Aquent and is also CTO for the interactive map provider nuCloud. When it comes to web communication, he focuses very heavily on interpersonal communication components of websites, as well as content considerations that must be taken into account when building usable sites. He is an active supporter of the dotCMS community, accessibility advocate, consultant, internationally featured speaker on web issues, and general purpose geek who wears many hats.

This post was written by Michael Fienen - who has written 98 posts on .eduGuru

http://twitter.com/timschneider Tim Schneider

Are there links to the ‘live’ versions of the sites? The screenshots are nice, but don’t do a lot of the pages justice without the interactive component intact.

The University of Alberta version is here: http://www.ualberta.ca/~publicas/uofa/index-halloween-animated.html complete with the ‘secret’ link to the maps.
http://twitter.com/RUWebComm RU Web Comm

The archive of our photos, student profiles, video and behind-the-scenes video is here: http://www.radford.edu/content/radfordcore/home/admissions/my-choice/halloween-2011.html
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