Wilkes School

The Wilkes School at Grace and St. Peter’s, founded in 1946, is a small independent elementary school located in the cultural heart of Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood. Based on principles of encouraging joyful learning and developing cultural, social and moral values, the Wilkes School is a dynamic school filled with passion. Their students learn both within and beyond their historic classroom walls, taking full advantage of neighborhood riches with weekly immersion into Baltimore’s historic and cultural institutions, providing them a greater understanding and appreciation of arts and culture like no other school. Ashton Design developed their new identity and phoenix logo mark, inspired by the Wilkes Family crest, to reflect the school’s urban Hogwarts character and magical learning environment.

I was tasked with extending the new brand by selecting colors and typefaces and establishing a photographic style and graphic elements. I also led the website redesign, which began with information architecture and wireframes.

I worked closely with our developers to bring the website to life, adding touches of subtle interaction into the navigation and hover states. The most rewarding part of the process for me was being able to teach our client how to use their new, custom WordPress site. I love knowing that they are successfully utilizing what we've built and that the new website has led to a significant increase in traffic—as well as positive feedback from parents.

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