Discover Penn Admissions Through Their New Site Launch

Earlier this year, the University of Pennsylvania Admissions approached us to design a website that excites audiences about life at Penn, encourages engagement, and communicates Penn’s unique brand. We had already worked on Penn's main site redesign about a year ago and the admissions site is an extension of that initial engagement. However, we were working with a new team, new objectives, and a more narrow audience (prospective students).

Over the last few months, we’ve worked with Penn's team on this full site redesign and Expression Engine build. The design is exciting, fresh, and spirited.

A Rich History
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League University located in Philadelphia and founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1740.  One of our primary objectives was to get prospective students to understand Penn's innovative philosophy, rich historical roots, and academic approach that focuses on putting knowledge into action.

User Experience and Visual Design
The site’s visual design complements Penn’s printed viewbook and main website, reflects the brand, and communicates the university’s spirit and diversity. Bold photography, fun visual surprises (like an animated robot), images of active students, and the prevalence of Ben Franklin help to visually tell the Penn story.

I’m particularly fond of the sticky “At Penn, You Can” bar on the new site’s homepage. This navigational element provides an immersive experience for users and encourages discovery and exploration with the homepage components. Most importantly, it puts Penn’s core values front-and-center so students can quickly grasp the Penn message.

The mega menu at the top of every page enables Penn to surface content to users, improves findability, and engages users via quick access to pages, videos, and content.

Expression Engine CMS
We built the site using the ExpressionEngine CMS, enabling site admins to easily update pages without having to know HTML.  This CMS provides an intuitive, user-friendly system that allows the admissions staff to easily manage multiple pages. 

Check out the full story here.