A "Brand" New Look for HigherEdCareerCoach.Com

Today you will notice a fresh new design for Higher Ed Career Coach. The streamlined design incorporates my new brand logo, a stylized “C,” wearing a  mortarboard, with a stylized ball court on the inside part of the letter.  This is just one step in a larger redesign of all my sites, including Higher Ed Life Coach, SeanCook.Net and two others that I will be debuting later this year (Higher Ed Coach, which will be a directory and resource site for coaches and consultants who work with higher ed institutions, students, faculty, and professional staff.; and PuttingYourPurposeToWork.com, which will feature articles on how to live a more purposeful life and resources to help you do so, including some coaching programs and services for those ready to pursue more purpose-driven paths in their careers.)

The mortarboard “C” came about as the result of a 99designs contest I ran. This is a great site for anyone wanting logos, graphic design services, and corporate image packages, at a low price. To set up a contest, you write out a design brief describing what you want, decide on a prize, and then you run the contest, and designers submit ideas for your consideration. I received over 40 different designs (I think it was 56, but some designers withdrew their designs when it was clear they weren’t going to win.) The winning design was by Nelly Tonchev, a branding consultant from the Boston area. YOu can see more of her designs here.

The re-design and streamlining of my theme was done by my friend Michelle Panulla who works sometimes with her former roommate Beth Hayden of Blogging with Beth. They sang a duet at my wedding. (“Power of Two” by the Indigo Girls). They are working on similar integrations of my new brand elements on the other sites, as well as doing some back-end SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for me. I will likely be working with them soon to move over my mailing list from Constant Contact to another service.

I’ve also integrated a neat little toolbar from Wibiya that floats over the bottom of the page. This toolbar is customizable, but for now, I have it set up so you can search this site or the web via Google, see how many people are online here, join chats using tinychat, see my Twitter feed or go to yours, like items on Facebook, share them on Twitter, Facebook or other networks, and read site specific announcements and news.

I’m also integrating some custom elements into the site, as well as regular features. Pittsburgh comic artist DJ Coffman recently drew a couple of great items for me. The first one is a sketch of a vaguely familiar-looking guy at a chalkboard, explaining plays the team could run. I’ll be running this art with a new regular feature each Monday, which I am calling “Monday Morning Quarterback.” Each Monday, we’ll start the week with some opinion and analysis about recent events, news or trends in higher education. Sometimes, I’ll be the one offering my thoughts, but I hope to give guest writers an opportunity to share their perspectives as well. If you are interested in writing a guest post and being a “Monday Morning Quarterback,” send me an e-mail at sean@higheredcareercoach.com.