Smithsonian Craft Shows
Overview
The Smithsonian Craft Shows celebrates the work of America’s best craft and design artists. Interactive Knowledge was pleased to help the Smithsonian Women’s Committee build a new, robust website that highlights the massively popular yearly events held in Washington, D.C. We delivered an elegant and user-friendly site that helps visitors purchase tickets, plan their visit, and learn more about the showcased artists and art.
About this project
The Smithsonian Craft Show and the Smithsonian Craft2Wear, are premier events that celebrate the artistry and skill of artisans from all corners of the country. These gatherings bring together master craftsmen and craftswomen who have dedicated their lives to honing their skills and producing exquisite handmade treasures. Organized and produced by the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, the SWC advances American craft artistry to raise funds for needed programs of the Smithsonian Institution’s museums, research centers, libraries and the National Zoo.
Project goals
Previously developed as two different sites on two different platforms, the Craft Show and the Craft2Wear, the SWC wanted to bring both sites together under one backend experience. Because the Committee is largely made up of volunteers with limited technical knowledge, the new platform needed to be intuitive and easily content managed.
The IK approach
With a dedicated focus toward showcasing SWC’s massively popular craft show events, we developed an easy-to-navigate site architecture using Drupal, and impactful visual elements that provided clear pathways for attendees, media, and potential future exhibitors. Both shows content now live under one framework, and while they still remain unique URLs, the two sites share the same templates making the administration of the two sites seamless.
We also provided the Women’s Committee with an easy .csv upload of all the artists and the artwork. Previously a manual process, content managers can upload an updated .csv, provided to them by the artist registration site, to quickly add new artists to the site.
Key components of the website include:
- An updated and improved site architecture that addresses the needs of the existing multi-faceted audience and attracts new audiences
- A customized site structure, tailored for presenting information for the two SWC annual craft shows
- Responsive design to support multiple display sizes and mobile environments.
- Inclusive design and accessibility compliance to meet needs of audiences using assistive technologies
- A robust, yet easy to use CMS system that will allow the SWC team to continue to enhance and add content to address the needs of the organization and its audiences
- A flexible backend that will allow future expansion of the new website’s functionality
- Data analytics functionality that will allow the SWC team to continue to monitor the site functionality, use, and visitor demographics after launch
The Results
The new content management system developed for the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, will prove to be a much improved experience for both the volunteers and the audience. Elegant imagery combined with a lovely user interface, the new site will be sure to inspire audiences to attend the yearly events. The new site is set to launch in early 2024.