The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet (CSJ) are a congregation of sisters headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, with provinces and locations throughout the United States, South America and Japan. The sisters and their broader community work in various ministries, justice initiatives, and outreach opportunities.

The CSJ communications team came to us in a time of transition. They were doing some internal consolidation and restructuring, and they knew they needed their primary congregation website to reflect these realities. Some of their locations would be using this csjcarondelet.org website as their primary home on the web, while others maintained separate websites. The team knew they needed a central hub to clarify and uplift their organization.

Building strong foundations

First, we started our project by assembling the perfect team. In addition to the two of us from Blustery Day Design, our project working group included the CSJ communications team and members of their congregation leadership. This mix really allowed us to approach the project holistically. It allowed us to reach a full understanding of what the website needed to be for the organization and for its website visitors.

Content strategy & site architecture

Then, we got down to strategy. After clarifying our website needs and goals together, we did a content audit of the existing site’s pages, posts, and media content. Then, we created a working list of content needed on the new site and strategized the perfect site architecture to hold it all. We created a hierarchy of needed pages, grouping things in an understandable way for external audiences. And we defined clear categories and tags for post content, so that the posts could appear dynamically in feeds throughout the site when relevant. Lastly, a congregation-wide event calendar collects all the happenings across the congregation into one central resource.

We needed to build a new website that will work into an unknown future involving a lot more collaboration within our organization. Blustery Day took on that challenge and more than just building a website framework, they also helped us clarify our goals and messaging. Together we created something that our congregation can grow into.

Kim Westerman, Communications Director, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet

Brand extension & features

We completed a full brand extension for the site, where we extended their aqua & navy logo to a complete web identity, with a beautiful color palette and legible web typography. And we built, from the ground up, a brand new website chock-full of features including a calendar, language-specific content, and a modern, accessible design. Additionally, we integrated a prayer requests submission form that had previously been a standalone app.

All of our content strategy work really paid off! With our goals and vision in mind, we could carry a consistent strategy throughout every part of the project.

Website navigation

Then, we crafted the perfect site navigation to help site visitors find their way. With a clear main menu, helpful sidebar sectional menus, and breadcrumbs throughout, users won’t ever feel lost.

Something to grow into

For organizations in transition, a strong and accessible website foundation can be a major asset in moving into the future. Now, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet now have an amazing tool that can grow and change with them.