Studies in Excellence:
Effectively Branding a School District

The Case for Continuity

The superintendent of a large Philadelphia-area school district was concerned because of a lack of continuity. His school district encompassed 14 elementary and secondary education schools – all of which had their own individual web sites.

There was wildly disparate information, resources, visual design, and site structure from school to school. Many sites simply did not meet the needs of the parents, students, teachers, or administration. Site quality was irregular. Therefore, the superintendent approached Neptune Moon and asked for a consistent brand on the web that could be applied across every institution.

A Reasoned Approach

In order to develop an effective, dynamic brand, Neptune Moon launched an intensive research campaign which included:

• Review of local school district web sites
• Analysis of nationally-recognized educational web sites
• Coordination with teachers and administrators
• Surveys of parents and local community members

Thorough evaluation of all the data resulted in a detailed outline of the district’s priorities, the necessary content, and the required functionalities.

Architectural Simplicity

A standardized architecture was created for the four main areas within the school district: Administration, Elementary, Middle School, and High School. This architecture was designed to:

• Provide core information in a consistent fashion across all four areas
• Streamline the visitor’s site experience by utilizing a logical navigational flow
  
• Cross-link the sites for ease of use
  
• Allow for area- or school-specific items to be seamlessly integrated into the site structure (i.e., S.A.T. information for the High School area, or a school-specific event calendar)

Designing the Brand

The visual brand was created in order to accomplish multiple goals, including:

• Reflecting the characteristics of the school district, which had an upper-class constituency and a reputation for high performance in both the academic and extra-curricular realms
  
• Creating a consistent look across each area and school within the school district
  
• Incorporating each school’s individual logo into the design
• Allowing for school-specific photography in order to make each web site unique

The visual design included home page and interior page templates. A complete and detailed style guide was also provided to ensure consistency and continuity in both the site structure and design elements on an ongoing basis.

Set Up for Success

Once the site structure and visual brand had been approved, Neptune Moon provided extensive training to the teachers, administrators, and technicians who would be working with the various web sites. These sessions equipped the staff to use Dreamweaver, to update the web sites, to integrate the data with their back-end systems, and to serve as a resource for questions from non-technical staff.

The launch of the branded web sites was a tremendous success in the district. Parents, students, teachers, and staff alike were able to find information and resources swiftly and easily, resulting in increased site traffic, greater event participation, and improved community interactions.