Brand Identity Program

Web development

File organization

Our goal is to have a single resource for styling NMSU page content while still allowing each unit to personalize its pages. As such, there are two types of documents stored in two types of places.

Global documents

Global documents are documents that apply to all NMSU pages of a particular type.

• These are located centrally on NMSU's main Web server in a folder called "style."
• The URLs to these documents should be in the templates, so you shouldn't have to work with them. Just be aware that most of the styling information is kept in a single, centralized place.
• Do not download your own copy and place on your web server. Doing so will prevent your Web site from updating if we fix problems with the style sheet.

List of global files

http://www.nmsu.edu/style/template_styles.css

This is the main style sheet that all template styles point to. It contains the base style for all NMSU pages, such as the font face, the color, the padding around block level elements like paragraphs, list stylings, utility classes like "photo-on-the-right", and so on.

http://www.nmsu.edu/style/document_level.css

This style sheet extends the global template style to produce the "document level" page.

http://www.nmsu.edu/style/unit_level.css

This style sheet extends the global template style to produce the "unit level" page.

http://www.nmsu.edu/style/college_level.css

This style sheet extends the global template style to produce the "college level" page.

Associated images

The images referenced in the above CSS files are also centrally located in the same directory.

Do not make copies of these to house on your server. These files are centrally located so that when changes are made, ithe changes propogate out to all Web sites that use the templates.

Local documents

Local documents are documents that apply to the pages on your site.

• Typically, these contain style information for custom elements you define in the content of your pages, but they may also behave as "overrides" of elements in the global style sheet for specific instances when you need to override the global settings.
• Store your local documents in a location that is central to your own site organization. Ideally, you'll only need one local style sheet for your site, which can be pointed to by all the XHTML pages in your site. This way, if there's a change to the global style, you only have to update that one file.

Contact Us

For more information, contact Marketing Services between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. at 505-646-3221, or bip@nmsu.edu.