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Case · Education · Asheville, NC
Hillcrest Academy: a school website that feels alive, not a daycare clip art.
Institutional website for a private school, with a playful, lively visual identity, built to earn a parent's trust before they ever call.
The brief
Modern and fun, without tipping into daycare clip art.
A school needs a website that feels contemporary, welcoming and alive, without falling into either extreme: childish daycare clip art, or the traditional "uniformed prep school" look that dominates the rest of the sector. The goal was an energetic, colorful site that still earned the trust of a parent deciding where to enroll their kid.
The process
Lively and colorful, without losing seriousness.
A rotating, lively palette
Three vivid colors in rotation (coral, mint, sunshine yellow), used across badges and cards to add variety without losing visual coherence.
Rounded, everywhere
Pill-shaped buttons, generously rounded cards, soft colored shadows instead of gray. A warm visual signature, the kind a family associates with a lively school.
School life, front and center
A photo mosaic of the school right below the hero, so visitors feel the campus atmosphere before reading the first paragraph.
Design decisions
Rounded Baloo 2 type, organic background blobs.
Headlines set in Baloo 2, a chunky, playful typeface, paired with Plus Jakarta Sans for body copy. Decorative organic shapes ("blobs") behind the hero and key sections, always subtle, never getting in the way of reading.
Photography with no duotone treatment, unlike other projects in the portfolio, and always of spaces and activities, never of real children or students, since this is a demonstration project.
Result
A complete institutional site, built to turn visits into enrollments.
The finished site covers grade levels, extracurricular activities, family testimonials, the admissions process, an FAQ, and partnerships: everything a parent needs to know before scheduling a visit.