SCHOOL SPOTLIGHT
Bronxville Union Free School District
No one knows for certain why Bronxville's logo features a key in the middle of a book, but it’s been there for more than forty years.
“It was 1983, and a parent in the community decided they needed a logo for their paper stationery,” shared Brad Ashley, the district’s director of technology. “So they printed stationery, and that’s the logo he created.”
Bronxville Union Free School District has always been seen as a “lighthouse school” for its small, tight-knit community just 30 minutes north of New York City. Since the 1920s, it’s been a beacon to bring the students, teachers, parents, and the entire community together around educating children.
However, like many other districts, Bronxville faced a bit of an identity problem: its branding didn’t fully reflect its positive impact on the community, leaving the district at a disadvantage in a highly competitive county.
At a Glance
Bronxville Union Free School District is a public school district serving the Village of Bronxville, Westchester County, New YorK.
Bronxville recognized that a brand refresh was necessary to stay competitive, but the district had struggled to justify the investment of a complete website overhaul and a full rebrand when it didn't directly benefit students.
However, the newly elected school board recognized the importance of improving district-wide marketing and communications and saw an opportunity to address larger brand challenges before committing to a full redesign. They understood that a district’s brand and visual identity play a vital role in creating a memorable and trustworthy image—one that attracts families, strengthens communication, and welcomes stronger community engagement.
“Working with the Finalsite Advantage team really helped us look through the website and brand and see what was —and wasn’t— working for us and the community.”
BRAD ASHLEY
DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY
Defining an Identity
For assistance with the brand refresh, Bronxville partnered with Finalsite Studio Advantage, Finalsite’s strategic marketing and support team, to provide professional guidance and personalized support to help refine its visual identity.
As Brad pointed out, “Bronxville has a history of excellence, and anyone who moves into the district expects that in every aspect. Working with the Finalsite Advantage team really helped us look through the website and brand and see what was —and wasn’t— working for us and the community.”
Priorities | Brand vs Website
Bronxville’s partnership with Advantage started with a thorough assessment of the district’s digital presence.
“It’s interesting how what began as a strategic communications initiative, identified by the board, developed into a broader discussion about what’s happening in our area,” shared Brad. “We looked at who else is tackling these issues and found other key points, both internally and externally, to challenge the idea of immediately jumping into a full website redesign.”
“For us, justifying the financial investment is difficult when it doesn't directly impact the kids. It was an interesting balance between understanding our priorities and recognizing who’s actually engaging with our website.”
“What really helped was bringing in the experts to go through the process with us and figure out what we actually need ... With the new logos and the flexibility to update the website, we knew it was going to feel like a best-in-class site.”
As the district watched a neighboring school system launch its new website redesign, it noticed that despite the new look, many of the same branding and communication challenges remained.
Instead, the teams decided to tackle the core issues affecting the district’s brand identity first, laying a strong foundation for a more effective and cohesive website redesign later.
“What really helped was bringing in the experts to go through the process with us and figure out what we actually need with our budget, rather than us just saying, ‘Okay, we should redo it all,’” explained Brad. “If we slap a nice face on it and we never figure out these style guidelines, what are we really accomplishing?”
“We chose to do a scaled-back, Theme Flex design refresh and additional Advantage support to identify what's working and what's not. With the new logos and the flexibility to update the website, we knew it was going to feel like a best-in-class site.”
Finalsite visited Bronxville to walk around the school, engage community members, and lead productive focus group discussions. “The Finalsite Advantage site visit was really helpful,” shared Brad. “They met with different parents, board members, and teachers to understand why they use the website and any challenges with navigation, structure, or organization.”
The first steps were to research the history of their branding, rein in their logos, and set some strategic branding goals. The seal was an old file and of poor quality, the logos all used various shades of "Bronxville blue," and the sports logos had been modified by parents and others over the years…With no clear style guide, it wasn’t a surprise that Bronxville found different branding throughout the district.
“We had a brand that felt very random because of the way the community was using it,” said Brad. “There were logos that very obviously had clipart attached to them, and it just looked unprofessional. The goal was to revitalize it and make it more modern and fresh without it changing so much that people would think it’s too different.”
Goals for the Updated Logos
Together, Bronxville and the Advantage team developed several priorities for the rebrand to please its stakeholders, represent its history and community, and improve communications, including:
- Create a modern, cohesive aesthetic
- Update the brand to resonate with the community and represent its location
- Introduce a consistent, contemporary, and coordinated set of visuals, like a main logo, seal, and athletic logos, to be used at scale
- Create a centralized style guide of colors, fonts, and brand elements
Advantage worked with Bronxville on a comprehensive branding overhaul to modernize its visual identity, update its logos, and replace outdated versions with more versatile vector formats. The rebrand and website updates also included revamping the homepage with visually appealing slideshows and reorganizing information to improve accessibility.
For example, the Parent Zone, which collects popular resources for families and puts them in one convenient location for easy access, standardizes the logos and colors. The team also created uniform templates for emails and newsletters and moved Bronxville’s style guide online as a reference for others in the district.
In another instance, Bronxville had developed strong branding language over the years, but it was hidden away in a linked Google Doc deep within the site. With the updates, that language was brought to the homepage’s hero slideshow to align with the district’s core values.
Similarly, the inspiring “Bronxville Promise” that had been kept in a formatted table was reimagined as a much more engaging and mobile-friendly design, helping showcase the district’s pledge to its community members.
Implementation and Results
The new templates, logos, and site updates have all provided Bronxville Union Free School District with a unified approach to branding, making it easier for the community to access and use updated materials.
In the year since the brand refresh and site updates, Bronxville has seen a 23% increase in organic traffic to its homepage, and today, part of the district’s visual identity uses a lighthouse for its imagery in the Bronxville Promise icon, a nod to the past and a signal to the future.
“As you start the website redesign process, you have to decide on your fonts and colors and all those decisions first,” Brad said. “We weren’t ready to do that part of it until we've done some of this background work. That investment of just getting that stuff updated and a little bit revitalized — what an impact it made overall.”
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