Building websites that serve kids and the people who care for them

The best websites are designed around the people who use them. They need to work for the teams running them and be accessible, easy to navigate, and functional for the audiences who ultimately rely on them. We see this firsthand in our work with nonprofits and organizations serving children and families.

The Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD) recently featured two of our projects, the Children’s Trust of Massachusetts and the National Center on School Infrastructure, in a roundup of member work built around children and youth, work that shows how thoughtful design can make all spaces, including digital ones, work better for kids, families, and the people who care for them.

Here’s a look at the featured projects:

Children’s Trust of Massachusetts

Children’s Trust is a nonprofit organization working to address the root causes of child abuse and neglect by strengthening the systems that support families. At the start of our project, their site had become outdated and hard to manage. It wasn’t built for mobile and pages were slow and difficult to update, meaning resources families and communities depend on were a challenge to keep current.

We partnered with agency True North on content strategy and copywriting, then built a custom WordPress site on a flexible, block-based design. Accessibility was considered throughout the build, with the site tested for colour contrast, brand colours adjusted for readability, and every design and code decision built to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards.

The Children’s Trust team now has full control over their pages, with a cohesive look that holds together no matter who’s editing and the ability to make routine edits with ease.

National Center on School Infrastructure (NCSI)

NCSI is a federally-funded technical assistance centre that supports the improvement of U.S. public school buildings and grounds. As a new organization, NCSI needed a visual identity and a website that could establish its presence from the ground up. Because they operate as a national resource hub, the platform also has to give a wide range of education stakeholders, from facility managers to federal partners, one clear place to find timely content and tools.

We started with discovery sessions to get inside NCSI’s mission and audiences, then built the identity in three rounds: black-and-white concepts first, then colour and type treatments, then refinements based on what the client responded to. From there, we translated the identity into a custom WordPress site with custom API integration for dynamic resource delivery and accessibility built to WCAG 2.2 Level AA guidelines.

The final identity leans on vibrant colours and geometric building blocks, a nod to elementary school classrooms and architecture, echoing NCSI’s mission to improve the spaces where kids learn.

Both sites are live now, giving these organizations more room to focus on the people they’re here to help.