Garden School

Garden School is an independent school in Jackson Heights, New York, serving students in one of Queens’ most vibrant and diverse communities. With a strong academic program, a welcoming school culture, and distinctive offerings including Pre-K for All, Garden needed a website that made those strengths immediately clear to prospective families.

Design TLC partnered with Garden School to replace a slow, overbuilt website with a streamlined, high-performing digital presence—one that captures the energy of the school, simplifies the path to important information, and supports enrollment at every step.

Objective

Over time, Garden School’s existing WordPress website had accumulated technical and content debt. Unused and redundant plugins were affecting performance, the site structure had become unnecessarily complex, and the visual design no longer reflected the vibrant personality of the school.

Just as importantly, the website was providing information without always helping prospective families understand what makes a Garden School education distinctive.

Design TLC was tasked with creating a website that would:

Refresh the visual experience with a more vibrant, cohesive use of Garden School’s brand.
Create clear, engaging messaging that speaks directly to prospective families.
Simplify the site architecture by consolidating redundant pages and removing outdated content.
Make important programs and pathways to enrollment easier to discover.
Give the school flexible tools for sharing the people and stories that make its community special.
Improve site speed and overall performance.

Approach

Our approach combined strategy, content, design, and technical improvements to create a website that would better represent Garden School while supporting its enrollment goals. Rather than simply redesigning the existing site, we looked closely at what could be simplified, strengthened, and reimagined.

Discovery & Strategy

We started by looking at the website as a whole—how it was structured, how it was performing, and how effectively it communicated with prospective families. This helped us identify opportunities to simplify the experience while bringing Garden School’s strengths to the forefront.

Audited the existing WordPress site to identify unnecessary plugins, technical overhead, and opportunities to improve performance.
Reviewed the site architecture to identify redundant, outdated, or overlapping pages that could be consolidated or removed.
Evaluated key content through an enrollment lens, focusing on the questions and priorities prospective families bring to their school search.
Identified opportunities to give important programs, community stories, and pathways to enrollment greater visibility.
Developed a clearer content and navigation structure to help visitors find relevant information more quickly.

Performance & Technical Cleanup

The existing WordPress installation had accumulated years of additions, so we focused on creating a cleaner technical foundation without sacrificing the rich visuals that bring the school experience to life.

Removed unused and redundant plugins to reduce unnecessary overhead and simplify ongoing maintenance.
Optimized the homepage hero video to create an engaging first impression while maintaining strong site performance.
Consolidated redundant pages and implemented redirects to preserve SEO value and prevent broken links or dead ends.
Streamlined the overall WordPress setup so the site is easier for the school team to maintain over time.
Improved page performance throughout the site, resulting in a dramatically faster experience for visitors.

Content & Messaging

The previous website contained a wealth of information, but it didn’t always communicate why that information mattered to a prospective family. We refined the content to make Garden School’s personality, programs, and value more immediate and compelling.

Shifted key messaging from primarily informational to more engaging, family-focused language.
Reorganized and streamlined content so visitors can quickly understand what makes a Garden School education distinctive.
Reduced unnecessary repetition and lengthy content that could make important information harder to find.
Strengthened calls to action throughout the site to create clearer next steps for families interested in learning more, visiting, or applying.
Gave the Pre-K for All program greater prominence, creating a clearer entry point for families discovering Garden School through this community offering.

Visual Design & User Experience

Garden School is a vibrant, welcoming community, and the redesigned website needed to reflect that energy. We expanded the visual language of the site while keeping the experience cohesive, intuitive, and easy to navigate.

Introduced a richer use of Garden School’s brand colors to move beyond the previous site’s predominantly blue palette.
Made the homepage hero video a focal point, immediately giving visitors a sense of the students, campus, and school experience.
Created consistent page layouts and a clear visual hierarchy that make content easier to scan and explore.
Used photography, color, and design elements to convey more of the warmth and personality of the
Garden School community.
Designed the experience to work seamlessly across desktop, tablet, and mobile, with accessibility considered throughout.

Custom Functionality & Community Storytelling

We also wanted the website to make the people of Garden School more visible. Custom functionality allows the school to showcase authentic community voices while keeping that content easy for staff to manage.

Developed custom School Ambassador profiles to introduce prospective families to members of the Garden School community.
Created a structured system that allows staff to easily add, edit, and manage ambassador profiles without building individual pages from scratch.
Designed the profiles to add a more personal, authentic dimension to the admissions experience.
Built the functionality to grow with the school, making it easy to update participants as the Ambassador program evolves.

Outcome

The new Garden School website is faster, more focused, and much better aligned with the school’s personality and enrollment goals. Beyond a visual redesign, the project created a stronger digital foundation—one that makes it easier for prospective families to discover what makes Garden School special and easier for the school team to manage the site over time.

Design TLC was able to create:

A clearer experience for prospective families. Simplified navigation, streamlined content, and stronger page hierarchy help families quickly find the information that matters most during their school search.
Messaging that supports enrollment. The new content goes beyond describing programs and features to communicate the value of the Garden School experience, with clearer calls to action that encourage families to visit, inquire, and apply.
A website that feels like Garden School. Expanded use of color, photography, video, and more dynamic layouts creates a digital experience that better reflects the warmth, diversity, and energy of the school community.
More authentic community storytelling. School Ambassador profiles put real members of the Garden community front and center, giving prospective families a more personal window into the school experience.
A cleaner, more manageable WordPress site. Removing unnecessary plugins, consolidating content, and creating structured tools for recurring content gives the school team a website that is easier to maintain and update.
A stronger foundation for the future. With a streamlined technical setup, flexible content systems, and a more intentional site structure, Garden School has a website that can continue to evolve alongside its programs, community, and enrollment needs.

The result is more than a faster, better-looking website. It’s a digital experience that helps prospective families understand Garden School, connect with its community, and take the next step toward becoming part of it.

Before

New Website