Big Fat Smile

Established in 1981, Big Fat Smile is one of the largest and most respected providers of early education and inclusion services in NSW and the ACT, with 42 centres offering preschool, long daycare and before/after school care.

Their existing website looked tired and didn't reflect their focus on providing the highest quality early education and care in Australia. This was limiting their ability to attract both families and staff. Families also needed to be able to search and browse for centres near them in a more user-friendly way, and be able to refine their search by key factors such as distance, type of care, whether the centres are open during term time, school holidays, before or after school and the ages of their children.

A custom-built 'Find a Centre' search was central to the success of this project. Website visitors can search by suburb or postcode and see centres sorted by distance, which can be filtered by type of care, opening hours and age of children. The results can be viewed on a map view underpinned by Open Streetmaps, displaying centres with colour-coded pins according to type of care. 

Each of the 42 centres have a dedicated page with a consistent display of their key details, but allowing for each centre to have unique text and image content including a Director's Statement, parent testimonials and image gallery. Throughout there is clear signposting for parents to send an enquiry to a particular centre or book a tour.

Visually, a look and feel was created that was colourful and visually engaging drawing on the brand's colour palette and the creation of illustrative iconography. This was combined with large typography and space to ensure ease of use and intuitive navigation.