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The Challenge
A tangle of tools
that served no one.
College Preparatory School
Two products, one platform — a unified digital ecosystem serving a historic independent school.
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Our Approach
Two products.
One platform.
Rather than build two separate systems, M7 developed both the public marketing website and the internal community portal on a single Drupal instance. One codebase. One IT team. Two completely distinct experiences.
The architecture decision was central to everything. It reduced maintenance overhead, enabled shared content strategy, and gave the school a platform that can grow.
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Brand & Identity
Nearly two centuries worth telling.
M7 elevated the school's brand guidelines for the digital environment — leveraging authentic photography, designing custom visual assets, and building a presence that genuinely mirrors campus life.
Clear space rules, Pantone palette discipline, and a distinctive logomark system were formalized into a digital brand system that scales across both products.
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Content Strategy
Every message
built to attract.
The public site's content strategy was built around one goal: attract worldly, conscientious, change-oriented young people and the families raising them.
M7 mapped the full student journey — from prospective to active — defining content needs at every stage of the relationship.
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Wayfinding & Search
Four paths to the right content.
With six audience types — each with different mental models and goals — wayfinding required real architectural discipline. M7 built four distinct access modes and powered search with Elasticsearch for full indexing control.
Elasticsearch Search
Integrated with Drupal's Search API for extensible control over indexing, query behavior, and result display.
Information Architecture
Mind maps, personas, and user stories developed for each audience type before structure was designed.
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Personalization
Every user gets
the right experience.
Content relevance couldn't be left to chance. M7 built a personalization layer powered by a bespoke taxonomy and term hierarchy so every user — regardless of role, interests, or relationship to the school — encounters content matched to their specific context.
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Six Distinct Audiences
One platform.
Six experiences.
Each audience type has its own mental model, goals, and reasons for visiting. M7 built personalization and wayfinding that adapts to who is logged in — not just what page they're on.
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Technical Architecture
Decoupled. API-first.
Built to integrate.
Drupal's API-first architecture enables content-as-a-service delivery to remote systems, with real-time data synchronization across every connected platform.
Decoupled Architecture
Third-party applications connect via API — data flows bidirectionally, keeping all systems in sync.
Connected Systems
Canvas LMS, Office 365, and the Student Information System all feed into a single Drupal instance serving both products.
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Community & Social
Keeping school
conversations in school.
M7 built an internal social communication system that keeps community dialogue on-platform — not scattered across public social networks.
The result is a safe, controlled space where students, parents, faculty, staff, and alumni can communicate with confidence.
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Platform Foundation
One CMS.
Everything built on it.
The entire platform — both the public site and internal portal — runs on a single Drupal instance. M7 built a suite of custom modules that any Drupal developer can maintain going forward.
Custom modules cover class scheduling, membership management, personalization, extended webforms, announcement campaigns, ecommerce, and a custom dashboard. All documented. All maintainable.
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