Graphic Design Schools Site Evaluation

There are a total of 664 graphic design schools in the US. While all of these schools have websites, 539 graphic design schools have some social media presence, having accounts on at least one of the three major social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Of the schools that have a social media presence, the greatest number, almost 96% are on Facebook.

Visual Preferences

Color

Approximately 63.7% of the 664 graphic design schools use white as the primary color on their websites. Another 13.1% use grey as the primary color on their websites. Black (8.1%), blue (5.9%) and yellow (4.4%) are other colors commonly used as the primary color on graphic design school websites.

The colors used on the websites of the largest graphic design schools in the nation, are as follows:

1. Arizona State University: grey 34% and white 4.5%
2. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities: white 28% and grey 3.2%
3. University of Florida: white 39% and grey 1.6%

Font

The largest number, nearly 44.3%, of graphic design school websites use Arial as the primary font on their websites. Other fonts commonly used on graphic design school websites include Verdana (22.7%) and Helvetica (6.9%).

The largest graphic design school's websites use the following fonts:

1. Arizona State University: Arial
2. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities: Helvetica
3. University of Florida: Trebuchet Ms

Social Presence

Exactly 341 graphic design schools have YouTube channels. These schools each have an average of 185 YouTube channel subscribers. The graphic design schools with the greatest number of YouTube channel subscribers are:

1. Carnegie Mellon University: 16,128 subscribers
2. Purdue University - Main Campus: 2,760 subscribers
3. Full Sail University: 2,427 subscribers

Exactly 431 graphic design schools have Twitter accounts. These schools each have an average of 1,389 Twitter account followers. The graphic design schools with the greatest number of Twitter followers are:

1. Arizona State University: 24,295 followers
2. Texas A & M University - College Station: 19,518 followers
3. University of Miami: 15,911 followers

Web Metrics

Although all graphic design schools have websites, only about 25% of these schools actually appear to regularly maintain their sites. This can be deduced from the fact that 75.9% of graphic design school websites have 3 or more broken links one click away from their homepage. The graphic design schools with the most number of broken links are:

1. Tarrant County College District: 14,140 broken links
2. Creighton University: 7,788 broken links
3. Lasell College: 6,728 broken links

It is also interesting to evaluate the number of HTML and CSS validation errors on graphic design school websites to get a sense of the quality of these sites. The graphic design school websites with the cleanest websites, i.e., least number of HTML and CSS validation errors are:

1. Pima Community College: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
2. Foothill College: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
3. Gavilan College: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors

The graphic design school websites with the greatest number of HTML and CSS validation errors include:

1. Spoon River College: 68 HTML validation errors; 871 CSS validation errors
2. Mt. San Jacinto Community College District: 74 HTML validation errors; 841 CSS validation errors
3. Irvine Valley College: 0 HTML validation errors; 854 CSS validation errors