McChillin

Case Study

Grand Rapids Art Museum

As a beacon of the arts in an art-loving city, GRAM is more than a world-class museum. Its exhibitions, events, and educational programming span topics, mediums, and genres to connect with and invite a wide variety of audiences.

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An photo of the exterior of the GRAM building

The Project

GRAM came to One Design to design and build a new digital experience and platform that could host information about their events, show some of their collection of art, and provide resources for their visitors. Their previous product for managing their events was slow and cumbersome, and they were looking to improve the content editing experience and build a more robust filtering system to expose their rich programming to the community.

My Role

As the project lead, lead designer, and lead developer, I took ownership of the project and guided the client through our process. Working closely with the GRAM team and collaborating with our internal team of project managers, designers, and developers at One, I orchestrated a multitude of exercises to ensure the project’s success.

  • Led a workshop to identify the information architecture, gather requirements, and define success metrics

  • Worked with a content strategist to wireframe pages

  • Experimented with ideas early in code and prototypes to see how the brand may come to life in an interesting or unexpected way

  • Collaborated with another designer to present two options for the art direction of the new website

  • Identified the opportunity to showcase artwork on the website, then designed and built an experience around their collection

  • Created an extensive design system that included typography, tooltips, modals, buttons, cards, and more — all themeable to match GRAM’s unique brand colors that are random on page load

  • Built a complex Events Calendar and Hours system that provided an easy and intuitive way for the GRAM team to update their events and hours

  • Collaborated with other developers to ensure constant velocity on the project to hit our deadlines

  • Developed a flexible, accessible, mobile first, polished product built on Craft CMS, using Tailwind and modern javascript

  • Added a great deal of polish during the QA phase of the product development to ensure the website felt snappy and looked as good on mobile as it did on desktop

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The homepage features the latest events and exhibitions currently shown at the museum
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The collection allows users to get an idea of the type of artwork at the museum
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The mobile experience was critical to get right, so users could easily find visiting hours, directions, and event details while on the go
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The menu features subtle animations and transitions while surfacing relevant content and allowing for ease of navigation

The Outcome

The GRAM team regularly updates their website with new pieces from their collection, new exhibitions, and new events. The website has been featured in multiple publications and continues to be a strong portfolio piece for One Design, exhibiting beautiful art direction and user experience.