Web Crit

Friday, April 05, 2019: 9:00am - 10:30am - Grand Ballroom: Web Crit

Megan Frost, Chrysler Museum of Art, USA, Meredith Gray, Chrysler Museum of Art, USA

In the spring of 2018, the Chrysler Museum of Art undertook a project to reimagine and redesign Chrysler.org. The existing site was built in 2011. The Museum has had an online presence since 1998 and was very early to digitize the entire art collection. However, the existing site did not convey the energy and openness of the current Chrysler. The site was also not mobile friendly and had a number of accessibility issues.

The Museum worked with Drexler, a creative design studio from Baltimore, Maryland, Gallery Systems, and Blackbaud’s Altru. We had an aggressive 6-month schedule and launched our new site in the second week of December 2018. For many people, art museums can be intimidating and overwhelming. One of our main goals was to make the Museum feel as warm and welcoming online as it does in person. Admission to the Museum is free and we wanted the critical visitor information, hours, parking, etc. to be available immediately. The previous site was bogged down with outdated content and text heavy. The Museum, Glass Studio, Houses, and Library felt like disparate entities. We wanted to unite them and show how they are interconnected and relevant to visitors. By using clear branding elements, we have provided consistency to the pages without repetition.

Another of our main goals was to cross-promote Museum and Glass Studio content throughout. The site lives on a highly customized WordPress admin. Instead of building it page by page, we took a modular approach. This means that any section can be utilized anywhere else on the site. Not only are we are able to highlight and promote exhibitions and programming on multiple pages, but this also made development and content population simpler and more efficient. https://drxlr.com/work/chrysler-museum-of-art