The judges said:
Charming! The website, www.pittsburghkids.org, cleverly captures the attention of both the young and old, which is not an easy feat. It speaks to four
distinct audiences, the parent, child, educator and museum professional, while accomplishing its goal of conveying creativity, fun and a variety of experiences
that visitors can discover at the newly expanded Museum. Basic information is blended with entertaining visuals that make visiting the website pleasurable and
easy. We love how users can navigate their own discovery process, going from a brief description of the exhibits to the "What's the Real Stuff" sections, with
information on real world objects and technology in everyday life that relate to the exhibits. This process creates relevancy and ensures the consumer will
come back time and again. Most importantly, the website successfully ties the web experience to the physical museum, which is guaranteed to drive revenue and
traffic to the museum.
The producers said:
We identified four distinct audiences for our website - parents, kids, educators/group leaders and museum professionals. So our designers, Wall-to-Wall Studios,
developed four separate home pages, each using a common framework and our palette colors, but with design elements and content geared to each audience.
Information you need to visit the Museum is readily accessible, while the visual style, interactive features and the enigmatic chicken "guide" give
the site a sense of fun, creativity and discovery. We also wanted to convey the ideas and philosophy integral to our recent expansion, and to extend the Museum
experience to homes and schools. For instance, we include web sections on real-world objects and systems that correlate to each "Play with Real Stuff"
exhibit, and web links and books lists that children and parents can use to explore subjects related to the exhibits. An extensive content management system
gives Museum staff the ability to easily change content. To help the designers capture the spirit of the expanded Museum, we mentioned adjectives we wanted the
site's design to convey (quirky, bold, edgy, funny) and ones to avoid (cute, simple). Several visits to the Museum also helped the designers get a feel for our
new facility, exhibits and programs.
The judges said:
Inspiring! Provocative! This video gives a glimpse into the world of slavery and effectively draws the viewer in within the first thirty seconds. It evokes
emotion and prompts the viewer to crave more information about the exhibition and the National Underground Freedom Center.
The producers said:
The video program that Goodman/Rutt produced for the exhibition Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives, organized by the National Underground
Railroad Freedom Center, has several goals. It serves as promotional material that is sent out both to prospective institutions who are considering participation
in the tour of this traveling exhibition as well as to press. It also provides an introductory experience for visi tors to the traveling exhibition, where it
is housed in a 35-foot-wide-wooden structure that resembles the homes of former slaves. The narrator of the eight minute program gives a brief description of
each of the major themes in the exhibition ranging from auction to emancipation as selected images and videos portraying those themes appear on the screen.
The program, which includes a haunting recital of the abominations of slavery including the merciless separation of mothers and children puts a painfully
human face on the institution of slavery as well as on the universal desire for freedom. By providing a graphic depiction of the passage from enslavement to
freedom, another goal was to provide a more memorable context for understanding the exhibition than is possible exclusively through written materials. We
also introduced the Freedom Center and its mission for those unfamiliar with this new institution.
A tip that I would like to share with other producers is to listen very carefully to the exhibition's curator and others involved in its organization. It is
very important that you know from the onset what it is that they would like to convey and to do so in a manner that will best represent their exhibition concept
as well as the goals of the organizing institution. In this case, I was fortunate that I was not only the producer of this program but also was the
curator jointly with Dr. Spencer Crew, Executive Director and CEO of the Freedom Center.
The judges said:
Engaging and captivating website that appeals to more than the visual sense. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org effectively promoted and celebrated the 20th
anniversary of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This serves as a great tool that can expand as the institution grows. The timeline is well organized, which is a
must for conveying a breadth of information. They bring the history to life in a creative way.
The producers said:
We created the promotional timeline as part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's 20th year celebration in 2004. The goal was to showcase the milestones, stories and
memories starting with the original days as a Cannery to the present and into the future. It was a marketing tool as well as a means to celebrate the
accomplishments of our long-time supporters, volunteers and staff. The "scrap book" videos of some of the more fun moments in our history were a big
draw, like the filming of part of Star Trek IV at the aquarium and the airlift of our giant ocean sunfish out of the Outer Bay exhibit.
Producer's Tip: The timeline is serving as an important resource in ways we may not have envisioned at first. People giving presentations to local community groups
take bits and pieces of the timeline to create a "themed" talk. Many aquarium visitors and online visitors can find out what happened when or look
behind the scenes of our key exhibits. It also is used by journalists writing background stories about the aquarium.
The producers said:
The Asia Society's website redesign project had to address a unique problem: to create a single website that could represent the broad mandate and work of
the Asia Society, an institution that covers multiple themes, countries, and audiences. Since its inception in 1956 as a John D. Rockefeller 3rd foundation,
the Asia Society has been America's leading nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization dedicated to fostering communication between the United States
and Asia. Through art exhibitions, performances, films, lectures, seminars, conferences, publications, media assistance, and materials and programs for
education audiences, the Asia Society presents the uniqueness and diversity of Asia to the American people. The redesign aimed to bring all the different
aspects of Asia Society content together in an accessible and clear format while communicating Asia Society's in-depth programming, its modern and
sophisticated New York headquarters, its varied online resources, and its overall mission to educate the public about Asia. The major goals were to
improve the visual design with fresh colors, flash animation, and streamlined graphics; to revamp the global navigation to allow the user access to
content with fewer clicks more quickly; and better define and relate the Asia Society resource websites to the principal, institutional site.
The producers said:
The project to overhaul the central NMAH Web site was an ambitious one—in fact we had 21 specific goals we hoped to accomplish at the outset. These goals broke
down along several lines. First: an updated look for the site that communicates the unique nature and vitality of our museum, along with improved navigation
to give our 10 million annual online visitors faster and greater access to content. Second: to target specific audiences such as kids, educators, and visitors
to the physical museum by creating enhanced pages just for them. Third: to feature our collections more prominently by creating an online object database,
providing more information about the range of our collections at the museum, and featuring our objects on more pages. Fourth: to create interesting
Web-only features such as the "History Explorer" to enhance the site experience. Fifth: to take advantage of new technologies that would allow more
non-technical staff to make updates to the site via an administrative interface. The biggest lesson learned was realizing the extent to which the Web site
impacts nearly every aspect of the museum. It took about 45 staff members on 15 functional teams to accomplish this project!
Gold: Children's Museum of Pittsburgh Web Site
Bronze: Monterey Bay Aquarium Timeline
Honorable Mention: Asia Society Web Site Redesign
Honorable Mention: National Museum of American History Web site Redesign