New exhibition highlights the history of College homepage

A new exhibition will look back over seven years of Imperial's homepage as the College prepares to launch its redesigned website.

The current homepage has been in place since 2007 and has been viewed over 70 million times since then. Having featured almost 1,500 images and more than 870 accompanying pairs of words, the homepage has helped Imperial tell some of its most exciting stories – including cutting-edge research, outstanding student achievements, and important College announcements.

Held in the Blyth Gallery from 12-20 November, two|words: The Life of the College Homepage will showcase over 800 of Imperial’s past homepage designs.

Peter Gillings, New Media Manager, is responsible for curating the College homepage, working alongside colleagues to find the perfect picture and pair of words for each homepage design.

Peter said: “A lot of thought goes into the design of each homepage. We want to capture the richness of our community and give a true flavour of life at Imperial so we try to feature stories from all corners of the College.”

“Sometimes the two words come to you in a flash, other times it takes a long time to pin them down. While it can be infuriating when you’re struggling for inspiration, the two word restriction has brought out some real creativity and the exhibit shows this.”

Speaking at the opening of the exhibit, Pamela Agar, Head of Digital and Creative Media, said: “When we launched the website in 2007, we thought that we’d be updating the homepage a few times a month. Now it changes almost daily, which is a testament to the boundless enthusiasm, creative wit, and dedication of all who have been involved in making the homepage a success.

“We’ve created something really special, and I am delighted that we are able to mark this incredible achievement through this exhibition.”

The current homepage will be retired on 8 December as the two-year long project to review and redesign Imperial’s website begins its roll-out.

The homepage will be one of the first pages to use the new web design, alongside the prospective students site and key navigational pages. Other pages will update to the new design over the course of 2015.

Find out more about the Web Redesign Project.

Peter added: “The current website design, including the homepage, has served us well but technology has moved on a lot since 2007. People are now accessing the website from many different kinds of devices – and what works well on a computer won’t necessarily be right for a smartphone or a tablet. The new design will be more flexible and responsive – content will move and rearrange on the page to best fit the screen size and device the user is accessing the site from.”