AISB’s three mission shapes, the bolt, the clover and the paper plane, on the school’s navy.

Website Design and DevelopmentMessagingVisual IdentityCampaign Design

Celebrating a student-led mission through AISB’s new website

We designed and built a new website for the American International School of Bucharest, with the new student-led mission (and associated campaign) at its heart.

ClientAmerican International School of Bucharest

ServicesWebsite Design and Development / Messaging / Visual Identity / Campaign Design

Liveaisb.ro

Before we thought seriously about visuals, we spent months making sure that this website served the humans at the centre.

Jacob Shultz

We partnered with Yellow Car, who had masterfully facilitated a new student-led mission for the school. Think fearlessly, act with kindness, shape tomorrow. They needed a new website, and we wanted to ‘put legs’ on that new mission every step of the way.

“It’s been a joy working together on this project. We’re grateful for the collaboration with Yellow Car and Bolsta, and especially proud of how our students are helping shape the campaign. Excited for what comes next.”

American International School of Bucharest

Listen first

We always – always! – start by listening. Why is this website getting rebuilt? What’s frustrating you? Who uses the website? What are their jobs, goals, frustrations? To what extent do we need to integrate within the current brand, or push beyond it? Our Miro boards got a real workout.

Sessions and workshops with staff and leadership, mapping each group who uses the site: expat and local families, new and current families, prospective staff, the staff who edit it, and students and alumni
Yellow Car’s Felt Experience Indicator results, which we drew on alongside our own research
Message testing, moodboards and visual directions (for both campaign and website)
A sitemap and homepage story built from what we heard, then a check of every page against the research

Starting from the students’ mission

The students wrote the mission, and the school was proud of it. We wanted it to do more than hang in the entrance hall. Putting ‘legs’ on a big statement like a school mission is an area we love to work in at Bolsta Education. “Top down” statements require “bottom up” expression. We use story, language and visuals to build a world for those big statements to exist in. The beauty of creating a world is that you create space for the mission to be explored, reimagined, even questioned by the people it speaks to every day.

For AISB, we built a messaging device around it. Three sentence starters: I dare, I show up and I see, each left open to invite people to finish it themselves. Each pillar has its own shape, colour and voice, to help create that world: a bolt for daring, a clover for showing up, a paper plane for seeing what comes next. The statement stays the hero. The worlds around it let students, staff and families say it and experience it in their own words.

Think fearlessly

I dare

AISB Student, Grade 8

Act with kindness

I show up

AISB Student, Grade 5

Shape tomorrow

I see

AISB Student, Grade 10

Going back to the students

Partway through, we sat down with the student group who wrote the mission and showed them the early language and visuals. They said it made them proud of their school. The symbols were new, but the school’s colours kept it grounded, and it still felt like “AISB”.

What we built into the website

The mission shapes help you find your way

On the website, the three worlds do the wayfinding. The bolt, the clover and the plane mark the homepage headlines, the mission sentence, the Our Mission page and the student-written cards. Lines written by students are (almost) the first thing a prospective parent meets on their first visit, in the same colour, beside the same shape. It says “this isn’t just lip-service. We mean it.”

The AISB home page: ‘We are Creative-Thinkers’ with the gold bolt beside it.

The AISB mission sentence, each value phrase carrying its colour and shape.

On mobile, the ‘I dare’ card with its bolt, and ‘I show up’ with its clover.

People speak in their own typeface

A mono version of the type is kept for human voices and nothing else. When you see it on the site, a person is speaking.

The student-written mission cards on the AISB home page, each line set in the mono type.

A glossary built into the page

Families new to IB schools meet a lot of acronyms. Terms like IB World School, Reggio Emilia and CCA have a dotted underline that opens a plain-language definition, without leaving the page.

Hovering ‘Reggio Emilia approach’ on the AISB Curriculum page opens its definition.

Search that understands what families type

The site search opens over any page, commonly known as a ‘command palette’ or ‘unified search’. It returns pages, stories and glossary definitions all at once.

AISB’s search with ‘athletics’ typed; Opportunities comes back first.

The calendar sits next to search

The calendar was one of the most visited pages on the old site, so it has its own icon in the header beside search and the parent portal. Current families also have an Information Hub that gathers what they need in one place.

The AISB header: Visit, Apply, and the calendar, parent portal and search icons, with the Calendar label showing.

Search on mobile, with ‘athletics’ typed.

A glossary tap on ‘Co-curricular activities’ on mobile.

The team

Bolsta Education

Jacob Shultz: Strategy, Messaging Strategy, Copywriting and Development
Dan Robson: Campaign and Web Design
Nikita Kumar: Messaging Strategy and Copywriting