About the project
The William and Ellen Vinten Trust is a Bury St Edmunds charitable foundation that supports schools, colleges and community organisations across West Suffolk, with a specific focus on growing local interest and ability in science, technology, engineering and maths. Founded in memory of the late William and Ellen Vinten — whose precision engineering company anchored Bury St Edmunds’ technical manufacturing tradition for decades — the Trust funds STEM enrichment programmes, equipment, teacher development and student bursaries. The work matters: West Suffolk produces fewer engineering graduates per capita than the UK average, and bridging that gap takes early, sustained, school-level investment.
The Trust came to Jabu Designs needing a website that could match the seriousness and ambition of its mission. The previous site was functional but understated — it didn’t communicate the scale of the Trust’s impact, didn’t make it easy for schools to discover and apply for funding, and didn’t showcase the dozens of grants already awarded across the local area. With a relaunched grant programme and a renewed push to engage the next generation of Suffolk students, the Trust needed a digital home that did justice to the work.
The challenge
Three distinct audiences had to be served by a single site. Schools and teachers needed clear pathways to apply for funding and equipment grants. Prospective trustees and partner organisations needed to understand the Trust’s history, governance and approach. And local students and parents needed to see the Trust as a real, visible champion of STEM careers in Bury St Edmunds — not a faceless distant fund. Add to that the editorial requirement to publish ongoing programme news without ongoing developer involvement, and the build needed to balance ambition with self-sufficiency.
Visual identity was the other big lift. The Vinten name carries weight locally but had never been translated into a confident, modern brand presence online. We needed to honour the Trust’s engineering heritage while feeling current enough to engage Year 9 students who’ve never heard the family name.
Our approach
We started with a discovery session in person at the Trust’s Bury St Edmunds office, working through audience mapping, content priorities and the look-and-feel direction. From there we developed a bold education-focused visual identity built around strong brand colour, clean typography and confident layout — designed to feel substantial and ambitious, not corporate or austere.
The information architecture was deliberately simple: a clear top-level split between ‘What we do’, ‘Who we are’, ‘Programmes’ and ‘Apply’. Each pathway lets a different audience get to the right place in two clicks or fewer. The programmes section gives every supported initiative its own page with imagery, outcomes and student/teacher quotes — turning what could have been a dry list of grants into a portfolio of real local impact.
Behind the scenes, we built the site on WordPress with a custom theme so the Trust’s team can publish news, update programme outcomes and add new grants directly — without needing developer time for routine content edits.
What we delivered
- Bold education-focused visual identity — confident brand colour application, large typographic treatments, considered photography and a tone that respects the heritage while feeling distinctly current
- Three-audience information architecture — clear pathways for schools, partners and the wider community, with quick-route apply CTAs at every level
- Programme showcase pages — individual deep-dives for each supported initiative, with outcomes, beneficiary quotes and visual storytelling
- Embedded video introduction — a hero-positioned film explaining the Trust’s mission directly from the trustees, building trust and human connection at the point of arrival
- Streamlined grant application flow — schools can identify the right grant programme, check eligibility and submit applications in a single linear flow
- Editor-friendly news section — the team adds programme updates, success stories and event announcements without involving us
- Trustees & team profiles — personable, human-led presentation of the people behind the Trust, building credibility for partner conversations
- Social integration — LinkedIn and Instagram feeds embedded for community visibility and ongoing audience-building
- WordPress CMS & UK hosting — self-managed content, automatic backups, SSL, and the ability to grow content over time without rebuild costs
- Mobile-first responsive design — built for phones first since most school-age audiences arrive on mobile
See it live
The William and Ellen Vinten Trust website is live and in active use — visit it to see the finished build supporting real STEM programmes across West Suffolk.
Why it works
Most charity websites either look apologetic (small fonts, faint colours, ‘please help’ tone) or corporate (stock photos of board members, generic mission statements). The Vinten Trust site does neither. It looks like what the Trust actually is: a serious, well-resourced local foundation with a clear mission and the means to deliver on it. The bold visual confidence is itself a statement — that STEM in Suffolk deserves first-rate presentation, not a sympathy pitch.
Practically, the three-audience architecture has done its job. Schools find their pathway and convert into applications faster than they did on the previous site. Partner organisations get the credibility cues they need from the team and history pages. And the editor-managed news section means the Trust can show momentum — a steady drumbeat of programme wins, student outcomes and event announcements — without ever having to call us first.
Could we build your project next?
Jabu Designs is a website design, software development, and design and print agency based in Bury St Edmunds. We deliver bespoke websites, brochures, business cards, and full identity systems for businesses and charities across Suffolk and the wider UK — whatever your industry, whatever your goals. Alongside website design, we also offer bespoke software development, custom web applications, eCommerce, brand identity and design-and-print collateral — making us a genuine one-stop digital partner for ambitious organisations.
