After considering four concepts for Georgetown.edu’s redesign, the Office of Communications has selected the fourth design, shown above, which their web developer Happy Cog offered as an alternative to three other designs which people said were “were not ‘cutting edge’ or ‘innovative’ enough.”

“The design offers us the flexibility to feature news and events happening on campus while still highlighting the elements that make Georgetown University unique,” Scott Anderson of the Office of Communications. He continued:

“Even though we have settled on a design concept, it does not mean work on the design is complete. We will be working with Happy Cog to polish the design over the next month. In particular, we will work with them on the design’s color scheme and the arrangement of things in the header. If there are other things you think we can improve, let us know by commenting on this post.”

We got a look at three potential designs for Georgetown’s website redesign last week, but after getting mixed feedback on those designs, the Communication Office’s Scott Anderson writes, they’ve asked their design firm to come up  with a fourth option.

“We’ve heard from a number of people that they felt the designs we posted earlier were not ‘cutting edge’ or ‘innovative’ enough,” he writes, “so we asked Happy Cog to come up with a more aggressive option.”

Above is that fourth option. It still includes the floating footer, but it features more content on the homepage, like events and additional University news stories, and places the seal and a sketch of Healy Hall at the bottom, too.

Commenters on the Georgetown Web Redesign blog are split:

Teresa Weber says, “Whoa, my head is spinning from looking at this website. I’m not sure where to look for the content that interests me most. Incredibly busy design with a squished feel. I agree with comments from the first round that Georgetown University looks best when all on one line. I would still recommend working from the ‘Clarity’ design from Round 1.”

Piet Niederhuasen writes, “This two column layout has the benefit of making the page more flexible — you can put more types of content higher on the page, such as current news/events (left) in addition to background content (right). It makes the page more useful in the long run.”

What do you think?