VISUAL IDENTITY SYSTEM
BRAND EXPANSION
Graphic Design
Information Architecture
Content Strategy
Copy Editing
Web Design + Development
Motion DESIGN + Microinteractions
Accessibility Optimization

Stephen Gaynor School, a K–8 independent school in New York City serving students with learning differences, partnered with MAVE to reimagine a digital experience that matched the energy of its community. As the school evolved, its website had become increasingly difficult to navigate, visually fragmented, and less reflective of the warmth and excellence found throughout campus. We redesigned the experience from the ground up, centering accessibility, elevating storytelling, streamlining the user journey, and building a flexible visual system that can evolve alongside the school for years to come.

The project began with a complete reevaluation of the site’s structure and user journeys. With nearly 70 pages of sprawling and often redundant content, we streamlined the information architecture into a more intuitive and connected experience designed to better support prospective families, current parents, educators, and donors alike. New portal-style landing pages, clearer navigation pathways, and a stronger typographic hierarchy helped transform dense informational content into something far more approachable, digestible, engaging, and structurally optimized for modern search visibility.

Beyond the visual redesign, the project also focused heavily on creating a more sustainable and flexible editorial ecosystem for the school moving forward. We migrated the site into a more modern and intuitive development framework that empowered the Gaynor team to more easily build, edit, and expand pages internally while maintaining visual consistency throughout the experience. Enhanced analytics tools, professional SEO software, and improved site tracking were also integrated to provide the school with deeper insight into user behavior and performance, equipping their team to make more informed decisions as the platform continues to evolve.

We softened MMFS’s hallmark green and shifted it to an accent role, building the palette around soft cream and deep forest green, balanced with muted purples, rich red, and a bright yellow to symbolize brilliance. Typography balanced warmth and rigor: Railroad Gothic ATF gave punchy energy to display headlines, P22 Mackinac Pro carried elegance for section headlines, and Area Normal provided clarity and accessibility for body copy, especially for dyslexic readers. This balance underscored the school’s rigorous academic program while keeping the design modern and approachable.

The redesigned website became a dynamic, accessible hub that better reflects the school’s spirit and mission. Clearer navigation, consistent calls-to-action, and powerful SEO and analytics tools made the site both user-friendly and future-ready. The project also became a springboard for refreshing MMFS’s visual identity, extending into a logo update. And our work continues today—we remain engaged on retainer, managing and maintaining the site to keep it secure, current, and aligned with the school’s evolving needs.

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