The Williams School Website
What We Did
Future leaders of America.
The Williams School is an independent, college-preparatory day school in New London, Connecticut, serving students in grades 6-12. One of the best college-prep experiences on the shoreline, Williams focuses on academic excellence, character development, and fostering a strong sense of community to prepare students for lifelong learning.
Project Goals
The team at the Williams School came to Julia Balfour to redesign their existing site and bring it to WordPress in an easy to use and maintain website. Their objective was to get their audience to interact with the website with the goal of three outcomes: applying to Williams, donating to Williams, and engaging with Williams. These objectives meant we needed to focus on creating user journeys for prospective students, current students, alumni and friends, and the general community, while creating strong Williams-centric visuals. Known for its rigorous academics, strong community values, and emphasis on personal development, the Williams School needed a digital platform that reflected these strengths.
Seas the Day
Design
Given a logo and three shades of blue, the Julia Balfour team expanded on the Williams logo, complementing their core colors with light neutrals and textures found right at school — the stone found around campus, the linen of the classroom walls, and the waves of the ocean water. Coupled with strong imagery of real students, the visuals of the site popped, bringing Williams’ on-campus magic to digital life.
Heard It Here First
Williams Testimonials
One type of content the Williams team knew would be important to include was testimonials from current and past students, parents, and faculty members. Wanting to break the mold of the standard testimonial style and pack a lot of great information into one block, the JB team created a carousel feature for this content. Set on one of our texture backgrounds and featuring imagery of the speaker to make it even more personal, a handful of testimonials are laid out in a wave pattern, a nod to Waterford’s shoreline. Opening the testimonial gives the user a full story, important details, and even a surprise video. Get the stories from a Williams Blue themselves!
