Last week we did a photo shoot at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School for their new web site. St. Anthony’s is a small Catholic elementary school with a strong Franciscan tradition and African-American heritage in Greenville’s West End neighborhood. For a school that is so undeniably unique and vibrant, it is only fitting that we create and use original photography to communicate that. St. Anthony’s will be using the new site to help raise awareness about the school, to increase donor interest, as well as continue to attract new students and faculty. It will launch later this year.

We’d like to thank St. Anthony’s leadership, staff, teachers and students for being so hospitable and loving. And, a big thank you to Matt Daniel Photography. Working with them resulted in probably the smoothest and most fun shoot ever. The kids thought Matt and Jenna Daniel were rock stars – yet they were the ones taking the pictures! Here’s just a taste from the photo shoot. You can view more on their blog.

Mike Henry sums up the project nicely on Blue Ion’s blog. The passion for life that permeates the community, from the residents, as well as the leadership and staff – and their ability to articulate that passion – gave me, as a writer, a strong, creative base from which to develop the content.

Another tall order was to avoid the traditional positioning and verbiage of retirement community marketing, which is about as fresh as 30-year-old potpourri.

Off-limit wording included “peace of mind” and even “retirement.” Bishop Gadsden residents are anything but retired.

We also had fun developing different elements to the site, including resident profiles, an interactive map of Charleston, and a sweet, sliding timeline of Bishop Gadsden’s milestones.

This year’s theme was “Pirates of the Keemobean.” We’re so ready to get started. Why, you ask? Because it’ll be 40 pages (or so) of piratey-goodness.

Many thanks to Cheryl Barnette, one of our designers, for pulling some Jedi mind reading and producing perfection from the get-go. The client was so thrilled, we went on to design its full suite of identity materials.