Objective:

Union Street Media first designed and developed Brunswick's site in the fall of 2003.  In the summer of 2010, we embarked on an overhaul the original site.  Brunswick's goals in redeveloping the site was to more easily inform their audiences of events at and important updates from the School, communicate with potential parents & students what Brunswick has to offer, increase engagement in the alumni community, generate more online donations from parents and alumni, and broadly integrate social media.  In addition, the Brunswick School team wanted to develop the athletic section, while still placing equal weight on academics and the arts as well. 

Solution

More easily inform audiences of events at/important updates from the school

• USM's Interactive team worked together to embed audience-specific Google calendars and announcements boxes in every page sidebar throughout the site, including the homepage.  The calendar events and announcements filter specifically depending on which section of the site you're in, so in the Upper School sections, only announcements and events specific to Upper School students, faculty, and parents appear.
• For large events or especially important events such as snow days, the Design and Production teams developed a header graphic which appears throughout the site, that can be actived or deactivated as the need arises.

More clearly communicate with potential parents & students what Brunswick has to offer

• The USM team developed a design which focuses heavily on vibrant graphics and visual elements that show site visitors what Brunswick is like before the content can tell them.  The use of the Brunswick core color scheme in addition to archived and new photos provides visitors with a sense of place without having to step foot on the campus.
• The site navigation was restructured to more clearly educate visitors about Brunswick's focus on the whole boy - one who can excel in academics, athletics, and the arts, not just one or the other.  The goal was to show that Brunswick does not place weight on one specific area of education, but rather focuses on developing well-rounded young adults to position them for future success. 

Increase engagement in the alumni community and Generate increasing donations from parents and alumni

• USM restructured the navigation to provide specific call outs for the three main audiences on the site - parents, students/faculty, and specifically, alumni.
• Within the alumni section, the USM team added alumni-specific news and events information, links to alumni social media outlets, and access to alumni photo galleries.  
• The USM team moved the Support Wick section to live on the main Wick website to ensure more frequent traffic to these pages. In addition, the team structured the section in a way which easily allows visitors to access specific information about ways to give and a call out to specifically donate online.

Broadly integrate social media

• Throughout the site, USM sought to integrate Brunswick's social media platforms on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and within the blogosphere.  The team incorporated easy to locate links in the footer and alumni pages, in addition to adding a live Athletics twitter feed to every page in the Athletics section

Revamp the Athletic sections

• To update the Athletic section, the USM team suggested a restructuring the navigation so that teams were broken out first by level and then by sport to support a more natural flow of information that the site analytics showed visitors sought out. 
• The USM team broke out specific pages for Directions/Info, Camps, and College Athletics for information that had originally been scattered througout the different team pages 
• USM suggested creating a coach specific directory that would mirror the faculty directory to highlight the experienced and highly trained coaching staff at the school.