Mazenod College
Mazenod College, one of Melbourne's premier independent secondary Catholic schools, came to Lava wanting a full redevelopment of its online presence. The school took up on our concept of a visual and audio piece to showcase itself.
The Brief
Mazenod College, one of Melbourne’s premier independent secondary Catholic schools, came to Lava wanting a full redevelopment of its online presence. A key objective was to visually present a more polished and genuinely fun look and feel, as well as incorporating more engaging interactive content. A CMS was required to enable Mazenod to maintain the site in-house.
Lava won the tender process, due to our willingness to embrace the brief, in particular our suggestion to include an interactive Flash Feature. The school was very open to coming up with a visual and audio piece to showcase itself. Another key step in the site planning process was Mazenod’s enthusiasm in engaging a professional photographer to create a library of images for use on the website. This gave Lava terrific scope for our creative direction.
Lava’s Solution
With the knowledge that parents of new or prospective students are the site’s primary target audience, Lava went for a highly visual style to achieve a ‘wow’ impact. In line with Mazenod’s request, Lava used a more masculine colour palette, combining the school’s blue with a charcoal background. Yellow was used as a complimentary colour to provide a touch of brightness and contrast. The school motto, of utmost importance, is ever-present.
Travis de Clifford, one of Melbourne’s most talented photographers, was engaged by Mazenod on Lava’s recommendation. Travis worked in close consultation with Mazenod, with particular emphasis on the students and the breadth of Mazenod’s programs. These beautiful photos make the site a treat to look at, and Lava thanks both Mazenod and Travis for their efforts!
The photos are then complemented with lots of funky illustrations & typography throughout the site. The interactive Flash feature is a highlight, designed to get users interacting by dragging squares to reveal more messages and sounds. The carefully selected audio brings it to life, giving it real character and personality.
The Mazenod site map was planned using the JumpChart online tool, and this also acted as an ideal central repository for various parties to collate the site body content. The site features a highly custom Homepage, summarizing key areas, along with a Multimedia Gallery (video, audio and photos), and a visual calendar (which the school can import their records into via the CMS as a batch). The Lava CMS enables efficient updating by Mazenod’s own staff, and the Lava e-News Builder was also provided, for the composition of HTML newsletters.
