IVDE WEBSITE REDESIGN
Year: 2015
Gallery IVDE's system was due for an upgrade, after some research the decision to shift to a new system was made. With this shift came the opportunity to update the website. This project follows the process of updating the gallery website to reflect the new direction of the gallery.
Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde was established at a time when contemporary art galleries were just beginning to stake their place in the local cultural landscape, the gallery exhibited challenging artists whose names are considered the trailblazers of contemporary art in the UAE. In addition to a robust exhibition program and art fair participation, the gallery’s reach extends beyond physical spaces into publishing ventures, online activities and international projects with curators and collectors.
Project Summary
Gallery IVDE's website needs an update. The website should:
a) focus on the upcoming exhibitions and showcase artists' work
b) easy for a user to learn more information about the artist and their work
c) be easy to navigate through previous exhibitions, art fairs and news
d) include information about upcoming fairs and news that is easily accessible
e) modern and clean design, showcasing artwork
Website Objectives
• Help art collectors and enthusiasts gather more information
• Provide an easy way for users to access artwork by their favourite artists
• Easy to update news about upcoming shows and fairs
• Showcase artists' work, by making it the focus of the website
Overall Business Goals
• To support contemporary artists from the middle east
• To invite people to visit the gallery
• Create a brand name that is known for innovative, exciting exhibitions
• To build a client base of collectors that will visit openings of shows and buy artwork
Design Goals
• Should focus on artwork and exhibitions imagery
• Should be user-friendly and easy to access information
• Should have a responsive design
• Should include clear information about upcoming shows and art fairs
• Should be clean, sleek and simple and more image-heavy
Users
• The target audience for Gallery IVDE are people between the age 55-65
• They have a household income of 200k+
• They are avid art collectors, that look at art as an investment
• They are socially active, they visit a lot of events
• They appreciate food and wine of the highest quality
• They have disposable income that they use to invest in expensive items
Working at the gallery I had a pretty good idea of the business goals and who the users were for this website. I also was not starting from scratch which was a huge advantage. The branding for IVDE did not need to be updated. The clean modern design worked incredibly well and was a great starting point. The first thing I had to do was understand the current website, I needed to understand what the website was doing right and what could be improved. After talking to the key stakeholders I had a better understanding of what they wanted the website to accomplish, and now my task was to see whether the current website was achieving those goals, if not how can I do that. Questions I had running through my mind, does this need a complete revamp? What aspects of the current website can we use? What are the limitations of the new system? How can the transition be seamless?
Website Update Requirements
Gallery IVDE's website needed the following:
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Large Hero Image for the homepage
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New Art Fairs Page - so that users can find the gallery at their favourite art fairs around the world
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Updated Artist Page - this needed to include images, artist bios, exhibitions and press about them
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Updated Exhibitions Page - we needed this page to showcase the gallery's exhibitions that would take place throughout the year. The user must be able to see images, read the press release and learn more about the artist
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Each of these pages needed to be updated by the gallery, easily and that's why we chose Artlogic to host the database and the website. They linked the database so that we could easily add and remove artwork images to the website.
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Has to be easily updated with the latest news, exhibitions, fairs, artist work and press information
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As the gallery was dealing with high-end collector's items, there was no need for any eCommerce on the website and no prices were disclosed.
Annotated Wireframes
Key Takeaways
This was the first website redesign that I was solely responsible for and I had a blast. Knowing what I know now, I would have approached a few things differently, but I was still happy with the end result.
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I would have included a design audit of the old website as a kick-off point
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Having accessibility of the key stakeholders to get feedback at the right time helped move things forward quickly
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Annotated wireframes helped reduce the ambiguity between the developer and I, it made communication much clearer