Website: Art Institute Chicago
A pared-back aesthetic with simple navigation captures the energy of the museum beautifully
Any museum or gallery planning a website redevelopment could do worse than to look to the Art Institute Chicago’s new online offering for inspiration. The site has been designed with the way we now consume online fodder at the front and centre of the redevelopment brief, and it has pulled off something special.
In a world where content often comes to us via social media feeds – and often on a mobile device rather than desktop – the institute says it has moved away from a “singular” website to a more dynamic presence, focusing on not only what the site looks like, but also how the content appears on other platforms.
The goal is to help users find an artwork that inspires them, whether content is accessed via an email subscription, a story on social media or a keyword in a search engine. Of course, you will find the famous stuff (George Seurat, Edward Hopper, Marc Chagall), but the site’s “recommendation engine” throws up lesser-known artworks that can be looked at with an enhanced image view.
The experience is sleek and easy to navigate. And you can search the whole collection or just the works on display.
The pared-back navigation is the stuff of a web designer’s dream, with only three topics appearing on the homepage. The team says the new site has been designed to capture the energy of the museum’s activity. Somehow, its “less is more” approach, slow-paced video-page headers and subdued colour palette creates one of the most vibrant museum sites I’ve seen in a while.
Last year felt very much like it was the year of the podcast, with everyone seemingly trying to replace their inane online swiping with a more stimulating pastime. But there isn’t loads going on in the UK museum podcast space just yet, despite it feeling like a pretty perfect medium for the heritage sector.
This new series of podcasts from the Art Fund, released in November and December, feels like a welcome start and it would be great to see other organisations and institutions following suit.
It features six comedians and actors who visit a selection of museums around the country with a friend or relative. What I loved were the stories and anecdotes that the guests’ trips provoked. There was laughter and reminiscence, and lots of “Really? I didn’t know that” or “I had a dress just like that” conversations.
They reminded me of family visits to museums and how much we chat about stuff when we’re there (usually in the museum cafe) and, just like the podcast promotional blurb says, we manage to discuss life, the universe, everything.
The podcasts were a joy to listen to and I hope there will be a second series.
Online exhibition: Sporting Heritage and the Armed Forces
Stories of the first world war are all around us at the moment, tales of horror, heroism and hardship. Sometimes, from a distance of 100 years, it becomes difficult to feel a connection with the lives of those people involved. Remembrance can focus our attention on their deaths and sacrifices, and sometimes we cannot see beyond that narrative.
But this small online exhibition, part of a project that brings together sports and army heritage communities, allows us to glimpse the sporting lives of some of the people involved in the conflict, giving us a window into the worlds of water polo, rugby, lacrosse, football, boxing, shinty and hockey.
Suddenly they are sportsmen and women, not just soldiers or munitions workers, and their lives feel more real and their war experiences even more shattering.