Association for Academic Leaders

11 Aug

Education, Membership

Association for Academic Leaders: off Weebly before the platform sunset

The Association for Academic Leaders is a professional community for academic leaders in independent schools, run by One Schoolhouse in Washington, DC. Members get courses, peer cohorts, retreats, and a resource library of 250+ articles and tools.

Client
One Schoolhouse (Association for Academic Leaders)

Sector
Education, Professional membership

Platform
Squarespace, Weebly to Squarespace

Timeline
5 weeks

New design screenshot — add it via the gear panel in the editor

Old design screenshot — add it via the gear panel in the editor

Project overview

With Weebly winding down, One Schoolhouse needed both of its sites moved to Squarespace: the main academic program site (covered in its own case study) and the Association for Academic Leaders. This was a migration with a deadline attached to a platform sunset, not a cosmetic refresh. We designed the two sites as siblings, one warm and student-facing, one sharper and more professional for school leadership, and rebuilt the Association site natively in Squarespace so the in-house team could run it without custom code.

The problem

A head of school evaluating the Association had to trust it with their team's professional development, but the site sat on a platform that was being discontinued, and the design did not carry the authority the membership deserved. Losing the existing URLs in the move would also have thrown away years of search rankings and inbound links.

What was done

Migration of the Association site from Weebly to Squarespace, in tandem with its sibling One Schoolhouse site
Two related but distinct design systems: curved and warm for One Schoolhouse, sharper and more professional for the Association's leadership audience
Homepage and three key pages redesigned around the membership offer
URL structure preserved, with redirects mapped for every old .html address so rankings and bookmarks survived the move
Brand consistency pass across logo usage, color, and typography
Everything built natively in Squarespace, no custom code, so the team can edit any page
Video tutorials and a recorded training call for the in-house team

"Mikka was really professional, prompt and a great designer. "
— Jasper, One Schoolhouse

Here’s how it looks

Make it stand out

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Both sites launched on Squarespace with their URL equity intact, and the One Schoolhouse team took over day-to-day updates themselves. They have since come back to Studio Elias for new projects, which is the review that matters most.

Common questions

Not if the URLs are handled properly. For this project every old .html URL was mapped to a redirect, so existing links and rankings carried over.
Yes. The Association site was designed as a sibling to the One Schoolhouse site, same family, sharper and more professional in tone for its school leadership audience.