Brand Identity Program

Web development

Using the Web templates

The first thing you need to do when you use the Web templates is decide which template you are going to use. Review the specific page template styles below. Once you have familiarized yourself with the different Web template styles you can then go ahead and start downloading. Also, note the template page types do not specify anything about the raw content of the pages.

Download all three Web templates »

The power of the Web templates

The templates establish a uniform look and feel for NMSU while allowing you to define your own navigation structure and insert whatever content you want into the content area of your pages.

It is important the templates be used as intended. The templates are governed by style sheets, so when a change is made in the style sheet, modifications ripple though all template driven pages. This is the way the templates were designed to work. This allows you to focus on your content.

Please do not override the visual settings and styles of the style sheets. When the style sheets are changed in any way, the changes could impact your Web pages with undesirable results.

For instance:

• If you add a right hand navigation bar to your pages, and then changes are made to the style sheet, this could affect the positioning of text and images on your page, for example, if we change the width of the standard navigation bar, or move it to the right side, this will change the position of the text and images on your pages.
• Overriding style-sheet-governed colors poses issues. In the event of color modifications, your link and text colors may lose contrast, clash, or even become invisible against the background.
• Embedding HTML tags to modify your text presentation, such as text color and size, first of all dilutes visual consistency across all NMSU pages, but also isolates text from any changes made from the style sheet.

If you find yourself needing visual styles which are not provided by the template, please contact the Template Development Team at webmaster@nmsu.edu. If appropriate, they will add utility classes to the style sheet so that others can use the same styles in similar situations, and they will match across the entire web presence.

College page template

Use the college level template if you're creating a page for a major organizational unit.

• The college-level template contains a large image that is meant to communicate the nature, mission and discipline of the college in question.
• The template expects this image to be a lot wider than it is tall - your image needs to be at least 2.5 times as wide as it is tall, although you can make the aspect ratio more extreme if your photo benefits from it.

View example of the College page template »

Department page template

Use the department level template if the unit is somewhat smaller than a college-level unit.

• The department-level template contains a 239 pixel x 179 pixel image (located in the main navigation bar) that is meant to communicate the nature, mission and discipline of the department in question.
• The photo must be of good artistic quality, and must conform to the NMSU photographic standards as defined by the NMSU brand standards.
• NMSU University Communications and Marketing Services can assist you in taking and preparing photographs for use on your department pages, or, if you have the resources, you may take and prepare the photographs in-house.
• The filename of the photo goes in the "department photo" replacement area. You should also change the value of the "department photo alt" replacement to match the photo.
• It is expected that some departments will want to rotate in a series of photos for their pages, since some departments cannot adequately communicate everything their department does with a single photo. In this case, a link to a PHP application that delivers a different photo each time can be used, or you can write some PHP code in the page itself to do the rotation. If you need help setting up a rotating image, contact the NMSU webmaster, and he can put you in touch with someone who can help you.

View example of the Department page template »

Document page template

This template is used for all pages that do not fall into one of the above categories.

Note: The Document page template file name is "unit_level."

View example of the Document page template »

Contact Us

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