Rhode Island School of Design

Item: Rhode Island School of Design
Rating: 7.7

Art and design college and museum in Providence, Rhode Island.

7.7/10MABTU rating

DESKTOP · 1440 × 12,957/ ↗

Rhode Island School of Design Home page, desktop

MOBILE · 390

Rhode Island School of Design Home page, mobile

Section outline · Home

01heroGiant blue serif with scattered small photos
02introShort statement plus two underlined text links
03programsStatement with five underlined program links and photos
04valuesStatement over a row of student-work images997
05eventsFeature card plus dated list with thumbnails1,125
06anniversaryText left, black circular seal artwork right543
07videoInterview series with embedded YouTube player992
08spotlightAlumni text-left, portrait-right pair543
09newsThumbnail plus underlined headline and standfirst list
10socialFour-up image carousel with credits640
11footerBlack footer, four dense link columns, address629

Rating · Home

Visual design8.3

UX & clarity7.0

Originality8.3

Craft & consistency7.8

Motion7.5

Performance & a11y6.5

This page scores 7.7; the site score weights the home page double.

Main colours

Light·white background·vivid

Typography

RISD Serif Completeheading · serif · self-hosted RISD Sansbody · sans · self-hosted

Stack & style

GSAP Drupal jQuery Swiper Bootstrap

Bold typography Editorial Photography-led Swiss grid Floating CTA Mega menu Review badges Smooth scroll Sticky header Text reveal

Also: Google Tag Manager, Fastly, Google Analytics, Meta Pixel

Design DNA

White page, one electric blue (#2B37F5) and a high-contrast transitional serif set enormous for statements ('At Rhode Island School of Design, you'll join a creative project that started in 1877'). Small student-work photographs are scattered at odd sizes behind and beside the type, breaking the column edges. Links are plain underlined text with a '>' or arrow, never buttons, and a circular '150' seal rotates in the margin as a persistent mark. Lower thirds turn editorial: alumni spotlights as image-left/text-right pairs, a latest-stories list of thumbnail plus underlined headline, an events block and a black footer of dense link columns.

Worth borrowing

Let small photographs overlap and interrupt an oversized serif statement instead of sitting in their own band.
Use underlined text links with arrows everywhere instead of buttons to keep an institutional page editorial.
Keep a rotating circular seal pinned in the margin as a constant brand mark down a long scroll.