Drawing more than 100,000 visitors each year, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art is a Kansas City icon that has made access to art free to the public since it first opened in 1994. Its rapidly growing permanent collection contains work from artists around the world, and the museum’s own success has allowed it to expand and flourish in three locations. From lectures and workshops to concerts and film series, the museum hosts a variety of creative programs in its mission to make art an opportunity for everyone.
The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art engaged us for one primary reason – to inspire people to visit their world-class museum. They knew that a website that was better aligned with who they truly are was a key component of that objective, but also foresaw a great deal of challenges surrounding how to truly bring their collection to life on the web. Not only that, but the website needed to balance their secondary objectives as well – promoting memberships, providing easy access to museum information and allowing visitors to purchase gift shop items.
Taking our cues from the museum itself, we designed a contemporary interface that allows the collection to take center stage, and we presented the site’s content using a distinctive modular layout that allows visitors to explore content much like a gallery. The site is mobile responsive, content manageable and includes e-commerce functionality for purchasing memberships and gift shop items. Essentially, you can do everything on the website you can do at the museum except maybe eat lunch, but that’s only because we cut that feature in order to hit our launch date.
