Online exhibition and app
Google Arts and Culture: Natural History
New life breathed into natural history. Nicola Sullivan is blown away
The possibility of being transported to a world of awe-inspiring wonder seems remote when sitting in a busy office contemplating a growing to-do list. But a new natural history website launched by the Google Cultural Institute does the trick. The website has been developed in conjunction with 60 partner organisations: a major contribution has been made by the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London, including an online exhibition of 300,000 specimens from its collection and an immersive 360-degree video that brings a dinosaur to life.
Within a few seconds I’m watching flesh clothe the skeleton of Rhomaleosaurus – a sea dragon extinct for more than 170 million years; it shakes itself free from its mount in the museum’s Fossil Marine Reptile gallery and swims out into the corridor.
Using the Google Arts and Culture app on a smartphone, mounted in a Google Cardboard virtual reality headset, allows you to appreciate the fine-tuned sound effects and the ability to view the space from all angles. Magical images show the texture of the creature’s skin and the movement of its muscles.
The website and app both have a wealth of captivating features and content: amazing footage of animals and the natural world; a Fun Facts section (“10 Animals with Superpowers”); virtual tours (created using Google Street View) of museums all over the world. But it was the swift guide to 4.6 billion years of natural history, narrated by NHM experts and illustrated by slides of its digitised collections, that I found most engaging. The quality of the images is exceptional and while the commentary is slightly formal it is accessible and concise.
This website is a treasure trove of facts, beauty and immersive experiences celebrating the natural world and reminding us of the importance of preserving it.
App
Arto
This app is designed to help non-art experts find paintings they love using fun Tinder-style features. The app opens to Arto’s vast stream of images, including photography, pop art, contemporary art, street art and classical works by masters such as Rembrandt and Monet. Users indicate whether or not they like an artwork by swiping right or left, building up a history on which future recommendations are based. The app feeds off a database of more than 10,000 images, compiled in partnership with museums and galleries around the world, including the Met in New York and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. There are plans to enable users to stream recommended art “playlists” to their TV, share their own lists with others and buy artworks and prints.
This app stands out from the myriad of others dedicated to art because it shows that art can be fun, even frivolous, and enjoyable for everyone, regardless of their prior knowledge. NS
Website
Museums Galleries Scotland
Museums Galleries Scotland’s new website is bold, simple and brave in its design. It opens with a full-screen image of two conservators painstakingly restoring a magnificent rainbow-coloured parrot.
This image perfectly encapsulates what the organisation does, as succinctly described in the About section: it supports Scotland’s 400-plus museums in areas such as strategic investment, advice, advocacy and skills development. The images that populate the rest of the site are for the most part fun, artful and quirky.
On the left-hand corner of the homepage is a large box titled Funding: click through to find all the recent changes to funding streams open to museums. This is an effective device, conveying to users that Museums Galleries Scotland is a responsive and dynamic organisation.
The different sections of the site are cleverly colour-coded. Hovering the mouse over the advice section produces a pink underline, used to mark out related content. The length of the line indicates how much content relating to any given subject is available, reducing the need to use the search function. I really liked the intuitive simplicity of this feature.
Overall, an original, engaging and user-friendly site – and a useful reference point for other cultural institutions embarking on a website redesign. NS
Google Arts and Culture: Natural History
New life breathed into natural history. Nicola Sullivan is blown away
The possibility of being transported to a world of awe-inspiring wonder seems remote when sitting in a busy office contemplating a growing to-do list. But a new natural history website launched by the Google Cultural Institute does the trick. The website has been developed in conjunction with 60 partner organisations: a major contribution has been made by the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London, including an online exhibition of 300,000 specimens from its collection and an immersive 360-degree video that brings a dinosaur to life.
Within a few seconds I’m watching flesh clothe the skeleton of Rhomaleosaurus – a sea dragon extinct for more than 170 million years; it shakes itself free from its mount in the museum’s Fossil Marine Reptile gallery and swims out into the corridor.
Using the Google Arts and Culture app on a smartphone, mounted in a Google Cardboard virtual reality headset, allows you to appreciate the fine-tuned sound effects and the ability to view the space from all angles. Magical images show the texture of the creature’s skin and the movement of its muscles.
The website and app both have a wealth of captivating features and content: amazing footage of animals and the natural world; a Fun Facts section (“10 Animals with Superpowers”); virtual tours (created using Google Street View) of museums all over the world. But it was the swift guide to 4.6 billion years of natural history, narrated by NHM experts and illustrated by slides of its digitised collections, that I found most engaging. The quality of the images is exceptional and while the commentary is slightly formal it is accessible and concise.
This website is a treasure trove of facts, beauty and immersive experiences celebrating the natural world and reminding us of the importance of preserving it.
App
Arto
This app is designed to help non-art experts find paintings they love using fun Tinder-style features. The app opens to Arto’s vast stream of images, including photography, pop art, contemporary art, street art and classical works by masters such as Rembrandt and Monet. Users indicate whether or not they like an artwork by swiping right or left, building up a history on which future recommendations are based. The app feeds off a database of more than 10,000 images, compiled in partnership with museums and galleries around the world, including the Met in New York and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. There are plans to enable users to stream recommended art “playlists” to their TV, share their own lists with others and buy artworks and prints.
This app stands out from the myriad of others dedicated to art because it shows that art can be fun, even frivolous, and enjoyable for everyone, regardless of their prior knowledge. NS
Website
Museums Galleries Scotland
Museums Galleries Scotland’s new website is bold, simple and brave in its design. It opens with a full-screen image of two conservators painstakingly restoring a magnificent rainbow-coloured parrot.
This image perfectly encapsulates what the organisation does, as succinctly described in the About section: it supports Scotland’s 400-plus museums in areas such as strategic investment, advice, advocacy and skills development. The images that populate the rest of the site are for the most part fun, artful and quirky.
On the left-hand corner of the homepage is a large box titled Funding: click through to find all the recent changes to funding streams open to museums. This is an effective device, conveying to users that Museums Galleries Scotland is a responsive and dynamic organisation.
The different sections of the site are cleverly colour-coded. Hovering the mouse over the advice section produces a pink underline, used to mark out related content. The length of the line indicates how much content relating to any given subject is available, reducing the need to use the search function. I really liked the intuitive simplicity of this feature.
Overall, an original, engaging and user-friendly site – and a useful reference point for other cultural institutions embarking on a website redesign. NS
