Axis - Art in Yorkshire app

Overview

Challenge

Welcome to Yorkshire, working alongside Axis and the York Museums Trust, planned a nine-month celebration of great Yorkshire art and Artists covering 19 locations throughout the county. With nationally significant artworks supplied by Tate, the program would ‘bring home’ great works of art, and placing them on display in unusual spaces. fuse8 were approached by Axis to bring the program to life online and on mobile in a way that brought great art to a wider, younger audience.

Insight

It was imperative that information found on the iPhone application was as current and as up to date as the website. By linking the two via an Umbraco CMS, we ensured that whether users visited the website, or downloaded the app, they were seeing the latest information and news from the Art in Yorkshire program.

Solution

fuse8 delivered a tailor-made events listings site – a rich, visual programme of everything that is going on - at http://art.yorkshire.com. The site was built using an Umbraco CMS that was linked into the main Yorkshire.com portal. The site’s design mixed up contemporary layouts and vivid colours with classical typography. Built on a framework structure of ‘People’, ‘Places’ and ‘Performances’, the also site linked into Facebook and Twitter to promote a user's love (or ‘Like’) for the events.

The next phase of this project was the development of a bespoke iPhone app which allowed those attending the exhibition to play an active part in the installation. The app (which is available in the Apple App Store) guides people around numerous exhibitions using GPS and geo-tagged maps. The app also helps exhibition visitors to discover the ‘voice of the artist’ through a variety of means and most interestingly ‘unlock’ additional content and services when they are attending a venue via the unique ‘App-inion’ service that fuse8 developed.

Results

Achieving the ambition of opening art up to a younger audience and through more interesting or ‘innovative’ channels certainly has been achieved overall. Feedback from the art community and the engagement with the site from the wider community has been very positive. The app was also 'featured' on the app store alongside the likes of Dr Who.  

- Downloads have already achieved over 700% uplift from
  client targets

- Application made 'what's new and note worthy' section of ITunes

- Has also been in 'what's hot' section for over a month

The popularity of the app has also meant that a new version - ‘Art in Yorkshire Goes Modern’ – has now been commissioned for release later this year.

This app also won Gold at the Roses Creative Awards for best app, in a hotly contested group with some really strong nominees.