Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica

Website project

Website content strategy
Brand extension for web
Web design & development

About the organization

The Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica are a community of sisters based at their monastery in Atchison, Kansas. The community deeply values daily prayer, community life, and a commitment to “Gospel Justice.” The monastery also runs two primary ministries: Sophia Spirituality Center offers spiritual retreats & programming, and Keeler Women’s Center offers classes, advocacy, and support groups to empower women in the urban core.

stained glass window of three sisters in habits

Project to-do list

Rethink and redesign their monastery website to reflect the vibrant reality of the community and its ministries in a useful, friendly way
Strategize a home on the web to serve as a central hub, clarifying and uplifting their organization
Expand on existing branding to design a visual brand for the website that the sisters and broader community can feel proud of and represented by
Set Mount St. Scholastica up with a non-proprietary CMS (content management system) that will allow for more versatile and beautiful pages and posts
Ensure that the communications staff will be able to update the site themselves and manage its content easily
Set them up with an easy-to-update events calendar that they can manage themselves
Uplift and highlight their two primary ministries with beautiful, welcoming, site sections and “homepages” for each.
Accommodate Spanish-language content for some of the site’s pages and posts.

Project milestone

Content strategy & site architecture

After clarifying our website needs and goals together, we worked with the Mount’s project team to create a comprehensive working list of content on the new site. We strategized the perfect site architecture to hold it all. In particular, we grouped things in user-friendly, external-facing ways and used words that the public would understand (rather than internal groupings or nomenclature). Then we defined clear categories and tags for post content, so that posts could appear dynamically throughout the site when relevant. This content strategy work set the stage for a clear, welcoming site that oozes friendliness and hospitality.

Project milestone

Brand extension

The Sisters brought to us their existing logo and brand guide, based around their “Atchison blue.” They asked us to create them something feminine and calming that displayed their spirituality and hospitality. The Sisters also wanted the new site to pull from the colors and mid-century vibes of their beautiful choir chapel stained glass windows.

We did a full brand extension to meet their goals and desired atmosphere. First, we created a full, beautiful palette of colors with shades both vibrant and subtle, pulled directly from the windows. At every step, we made sure to allow for accessible color contrast ratios.

Then we chose two web-appropriate typefaces — one heading font that matched their existing brand guidelines, and one body copy typeface that matched the mid-century feel and shapes of the stained glass window text. Together, these fonts gave a fresh feel to their established identity and ensured full legibility.

A colorful palette full of brights and neutrals — The color palette includes neutrals and brights, all pulled directly from the stained glass windows (which are scattered throughout the site, too).

Screenshot of Mount St. Scholastica's full homepage — We carried the color palette and intentional design elements throughout the site. The end result is calm, welcoming, and truly representative of the monastery.

Project milestone

Site design & development

From the ground up, we built a brand new, full-featured website. We developed pages, posts, events and archives in a modern, accessible design. In particular, we followed the content strategy foundations to choose colors and design elements that are peaceful, welcoming, and vibrant. In the spirit of the stained glass windows, we combined circles, swashes, and rounded corners with more angular areas.

From full-width thoughtfully designed foundational pages to beautiful-by-default stories, everything looks great on all device widths. And clear main navigation, sectional menus, and breadcrumbs ensure that the visitor never feels lost.

Dynamic story feeds are scattered throughout the site, uplifting the Sisters’ fantastic written content and photographs. Additionally, the website team can easily embed YouTube videos, contact forms, and donation capabilities wherever needed.

The end result is a vibrant website that represents the Benedictine Sisters’ beautifully and authentically — and that effectively shares their messages and invites engagement.

View Site

Spotlight on

Ministry-specific sections

Our website project team realized early on how important it would be to provide the monastery’s two primary ministries with solid, effective online homes. Their sections of the site needed to feel both integrated within the site as a whole and uniquely representative of the ministries.

Sophia Spirituality Center and Keeler Women’s Center each came with their own logo and foundational color. We integrated each brand color within a smaller subset of our full color palette, making sure that each ministry’s content could be distinct and instantly recognizable.

Certain design elements defined each section, such as a stripe of the ministry’s main color at the top of each page, as well as a subtle gradient tint in the sidebar. We carried this stripe into the event calendar as well, ensuring clear differentiation and familiarity.

Two screenshots of ministry pages. At left, a Keeler Women's Center home page has a pink stripe at top and pink used throughout. At right, Sophia Center's page has their aqua stripe and tint in the sidebar. — At left, Keeler Women’s Center has a Spanish-language “home page” featuring a pink stripe at top and nice complementary colors pulled from the full brand extension palette. At right, an interior Sophia Spirituality Center page has a branded aqua stripe and sidebar tint.

Woman looking at website on screen. Website has soft blues and greys plus bright stained glass window colors. — Each sister gets her own beautiful page on the site, that can be updated with current information about her life and ministry.

Spotlight on

“Meet a Sister” pages

The sisters wanted to uplift each individual sister and give her image and information in an elegant, friendly profile page. We built a system with a custom post type that lets each sister’s data be displayed in a consistent, visually appealing layout. The up-to-date information plus a wonderful sidebar detail from the stained glass windows makes for a lovely personal presentation that the sisters can feel proud of.