HBCUs Outside
Elevating their vision with a dynamic online platform that inspires and mobilizes their audience, driving engagement and furthering their cause.
View ProjectThe Client & Their Mission
Meet HBCUs Outside, a truly inspiring non-profit dedicated to connecting students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities with the transformative power of nature. They partner with HBCUs nationwide, encouraging students to explore the outdoors through hiking, skiing, and more. Their incredible mission deserved a website that was as dynamic and engaging as their programs, a central hub for students, alumni, faculty, and supporters alike.
An Outdated Path
HBCUs Outside has a powerful story to tell, but their old website wasn't quite doing it justice. It felt a little outdated and, more importantly, navigating it was a challenge. Visitors were unsure where to go to find information or how to best support their cause. The site lacked a cohesive , fully-fledged feel, struggling to truly cultivate their vibrant community and reflect their unique personality. They needed a fresh, intuitive, and all-encompassing digital home.
Old Home Page
New Home Page
Our Collaborative Journey to a Unified Vision
We believe the best websites are built together. Our journey with HBCUs Outside began by diving deep into their vision and goals. They came to us with their own rich, internal mood boards, which served as the creative source of truth for their design and marketing team. Based on these insights, we collaboratively explored design directions, refining them to perfectly align with their brand's energetic and nature-loving spirit. A key part of our process was identifying four distinct user flows – for students, faculty, alumni, and supporters – ensuring each unique audience would find their path with ease and excitement.
Designing for Connection & Clarity
Our design philosophy is all about creating an inviting and intuitive experience. For HBCUs Outside, this meant crafting a visually stunning site that immediately conveys their passion and purpose. We extended their existing color palette, carefully selecting complementary primary and secondary colors that were not only visually appealing but also easy to read and harmonious with their nature-inspired imagery. Every element was thoughtfully placed to draw visitors in and guide them effortlessly towards involvement. We also collaborated on custom fonts for special sections, tying them seamlessly with their brand.
Event Management
HBCUs Outside needed a streamlined way to manage all their events, whether paid or free, without juggling multiple platforms. We built a sophisticated solution that allows them to host events as Shopify products (triggering a checkout flow) or as free sign-ups via external links (like Eventbrite). Critically, all events are listed in one clear, cohesive place on the front end. This provides a truly seamless user experience, while internally, our system offers a simple, multi-step process to incorporate new events, integrating Sanity directly with Shopify for automated product population.
Events page (desktop) / Single event page (Tablet)
Growth with Sanity CMS
Beyond just looking great, this website is built to grow with HBCUs Outside. We implemented Sanity CMS with modular sections, giving their team incredible flexibility and control. This means they can now create brand-new pages without needing a developer, using a library of custom components we built during the design phase – from carousels and callouts to forms and video embeds. Each page has a clear format, reducing decision fatigue, and we even incorporated global components for reusable sections like FAQs and forms. They can easily upload and manage images, with the added benefit of real-time content previews before publishing, making updates incredibly easy and efficient.
Optimized for Speed & Impact
Knowing their site features tons of inspiring background images from their incredible outdoor adventures, we prioritized performance. We meticulously implemented lazy loading for images to ensure visual richness doesn't come at the cost of speed. Additionally, we utilized caching strategies within Next.js to guarantee every page loads quickly and smoothly, providing a delightful experience for all visitors, no matter their connection speed. This attention to detail ensures their powerful mission is always presented effectively and efficiently.
A Vision Brought to Life
The launch of the new website has been met with incredible excitement! The client absolutely loved it, telling us it's 'really beautiful and captured their vision perfectly.' For us, the true success lies in fixing the initial challenges they faced and building a digital foundation that truly reflects and expands upon their vibrant community. It's such a cohesive and engaging experience now, and we're so excited to see how this powerful new tool helps HBCUs Outside continue to grow and inspire!
