All of us here at Onward State are proud to present the new, sexy OnwardState.com. The new design has been live for the past several days and is the result of months of effort to update your favorite Penn State blog. Onward State’s Production Editor, Mitch Rukat and I have been working for the last few months to bring visitors a cleaner, more exciting blog. If you’ve ever visited Onward State in the past, you’ll be greeted with a completely new layout, an updated color scheme and stunning, brand-spankin’-new logo.

Speaking of the logo, we gave you a sneak preview of one of our prototype designs late last Spring. Even though the preview we showed you was shrouded in mist, you can see how the logo has progressed from the old design to its current and sexy form.

Our Old Logo —^

Intermediate Logo Design —^

New Logo Design a.k.a “The New Hotness” —^

When redesigning your favorite Penn State website, we were careful to preserve the color and design characteristics that set Onward State apart from other sites. Our strong color scheme from the older version of the site was reworked slightly in order to draw the eye to the content and to make each page cleaner. As for the sidebar, you’ll see some small improvements, but nothing major. Look for the next site update to include improvements on our event calendar and other sidebar features.

When looking at individual stories, a fine blue line separates the content from the title and date information. Also, you can now click the author name right below the publish date to see their bio and all the stories they have written. We’ve also included a larger comment section immediately below. You can see the new redesign vs. the old website below. Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Old Onward State—^

New Onward State—^

I’d like to give a special thanks to Mike Morrone who has put many hours into redesigning our logo. Onward State’s fantastic new logo is a testament to the growth we’ve been experiencing since starting the blog. So many thanks Mike, from all of us at Onward State for doing such a great job in establishing the new look of everyone’s favorite Penn State news source. I know this is a bit of a shameless plug, but Mr. Morrone is a fantastic graphic artist. If you are in need of a designer, please do not hesitate to shoot him an email at mrm5249@psu.edu. His rates are reasonable and his work is steller.