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A unique approach to experiencing art

Sector

Museum

Culture

Services

Customer Research & Insights

UX & UI design

SMK, The National Gallery of Denmark, has a clear strategy to activate target groups and reach a wider audience. As such, they wish for art to go beyond the physical confines of the gallery and into the digital sphere. The result is a digital experience with a unique approach to experiencing art.

A screenshot of the front page of SMK. An illuminated face of a statue and short, white text.
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Screenshot of the SMK Search landing page. Image of a grey sculpture on black background, with a list of different search options.
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User-based approach

We set out to uncover what matters to people before visiting the gallery. We tested a host of challenges, desires and needs with a wide variety of test persons to find solutions that could help users with key challenges without overloading them with unnecessary information.

An animation for the SMK front page. It showcases clippings of classical art, looping into the colours of the design theme.
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An animation of the different grids in the new SMK design, image and header sizes
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Bridging the digital and physical design

The frame inspires the digital visual experience as a metaphor for exclusive focus. The structure offers certain pieces of content with a complete guide and calls upon the viewer to exclude everything else. Correspondingly, the absence of the frame widens the perspective and brings us back into the practical realm.

The general design drew inspiration from the physical features of the museum itself. The structuring of images in the website's grid echoes the free composition of paintings on the walls in the gallery at Østre Anlæg.

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Example of an SMK front page composition, here with a cropped figure from a classical painting overlapping with the text "SMK OPEN"
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Screenshots of the new SMK filtering service, where you can filter on different topics and colours.
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SMK Open

We are proud to have helped create SMK Open - an immersive digital catalogue making the entire art collection of SMK accessible online, including a comprehensive collection in their vault, which is rarely exhibited.

Visitors are able to search through 89,000 different pieces of art and explore them in detail. Users can filter the pieces by colours, artists or subjects along with a number of other choices. By leveraging SMK’s own public API and adding Machine Learning, artworks can now be experienced, studied and utilized in your own time and place.

Screenshot of the landing page for SMK art search, with a wide range of filters
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Screenshot of SMK art search with filters by colour
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Screenshot of the SMK Search landing page. Image of a grey sculpture on black background, with a list of different search options.
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Screenshot of the detail viewer in SMK. The piece in question is Titanernes fald by Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem.
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Screenshot of the art viewer in SMK. The piece in question is Titanernes fald by Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem.
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Awards

CompetitionCategoryTypeYear
  • Red Dot AwardsOnlineBest of the best2020
  • Creative Circle AwardDesign & Digital DesignSilver2019