Sessions Design Competitions are sponsored by
leading New York-based companies and organizations.
The Winter competition sponsor is Big Brothers Big
Sisters of New York City, the number one national
youth mentoring organization.
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Competition winners gain a portfolio
piece second to none: the chance to design a professionally-produced
project that is used by a leading company or organization. |
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Runners-up will have their work featured in
our online design competition gallery. |
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To sign up, complete the Big Brothers
Big Sisters Competition Sign-Up form within the
Competition folder in the Student Center. |
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Have a question about the Sessions
Design competitions? Email us at competition@sessions.edu.
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Below you'll find an introduction to
the client, a summary of the design brief, and contest
rules.
For over one hundred years, Big Brothers Big Sisters
of New York City has been working to improve children's
lives by equipping them with the skills and confidence
needed to achieve their fullest potential. Children
in New York face overwhelming obstacles everyday- violence
in their schools, gangs in their neighborhoods and the
constant temptation of drugs and alcohol. The nations's
number one mentoring organization, Big Brothers Big
Sisters provides at-risk youth, typically from single
parent households, with an intensive one-to-one mentoring
relationship with a fully screened, adult volunteer.
By matching young people with caring adult mentors,
Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City has turned
despair into hope for thousands of children.
About The Project
This project begins with a homepage redesign for Big
Brothers Big Sisters of New York City. If you look at
the homepage, you will notice the three biggest problems
with the page are navigability, look and feel, and lack
of Dynamic Elements. "We're a fun organization,
all about kids, full of energy, " says Deepa Goyal,
the Director of Technology. "And yet our page looks
like a medical insurance site! The layout is boxy, and
the colors have no energy." She also points out
that the site is hard to navigate from the homepage:
"we need to switch to a pulldown menu-- we're losing
volunteers and contributors because it's so hard to
click around the site." Finally, the client would
like to see a more dynamic element on the homepage,
such as a flash movie showing images of the kids the
organization has worked with, setting images along with
the text of the organization's mission statement. This
is our most prestigious client to date, and this project
is a great challenge for anyone looking to build serious
web design skills. We highly recommend you take a crack
at it!
This will be a three-part
project:
Written critique/revision plan of the current BBBS homepage.
Before you begin on the design portion of the project,
you must submit a written critique of the look/feel,
navigation, and usability of the current Web site and
your plan for improvements. Focus on the areas that
the client most wants to change: look and feel, ease
of navigation, and addition of flash element to homepage.
Redesign of the BBBS homepage. This will be a fully
functioning redesign of the homepage showing pulldown
menus and flash movie element. Images and the text of
the BBBS mission statement will be provided for you
as components of your flash movie. You are not limited
to the colors or fonts on the current homepage. Only
the logo must be used as-is.
Navigation plan for the rest of the site. Competitors
will submit a site map illustrating their plan for navigation
of the BBBS site.
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finalists
