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The Van Gogh Museum’s new website has retail, UX and colour focus

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redesign of Van Gogh Museum website

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has redesigned its website, with a focus on colour, retail and UX.

The Van Gogh Museum’s website receives more than 8.5 million visits every year. The new redesign is more than a place to find out the museum’s opening times or to buy a ticket. Its new layout allows visitors to explore the artwork of Vincent Van Gogh in more detail and links seamlessly to retail. Content is displayed with the user experience as its foundation.

Van Gogh’s paintings online

The Van Gogh Museum has now put their entire collection of letters, paintings and drawings online. Visitors to the new website will even be able to zoom in on each artwork to see the brushwork. There will also be information about which artwork is currently on display at the museum.

A new filter system means it is easy for visitors to search the collection online. The new ‘Vincent for scale’ function allows visitors to visualise the size of each painting compared to Van Gogh’s height of 1.64 metres.

Backgrounds have been carefully chosen to reflect Van Gogh’s revolutionary use of colour.

Size of Van Gogh's artwork compared to Van Gogh

Social media-style stories

A new series of short stories, similar to the Stories function on Instagram and Facebook help to engage visitors in Van Gogh’s life and art. These stories use images, animations, sections from Van Gogh’s letters and ‘hotspots’ of Van Gogh’s artwork.

These stories provide more information about Van Gogh in an engaging way. Visitors can then find out more information to continue their education.

The Van Gogh Museum shop is fully integrated within the website, making it easy for visitors to purchase souvenirs and print-on-demand versions their favourite artwork.

screenshot of new Van Gogh museum website story

Mobile-friendly design

The new website was designed in collaboration with Q42, a technology agency, Dept, a digital agency and the museum’s own digital team.

It has been designed for both mobile and desktop browsing. In order to be more inclusive, the site has been optimised for screen readers. This ensures that visitors who are blind or visually-impaired will be able to look through the website using their screen reader.

The Head of Digital Communications at the Van Gogh Museum, Martijn Pronk, said that “The teams from Q42, Dept and the Van Gogh Museum have done an excellent job. They have built an ultra-modern website that will form the heart of a digital Vincent van Gogh world. With this redesigned website, we are continuing to build on the successes of recent years.”

This new website will allow visitors to continue to engage with Van Gogh’s work, even if they cannot travel to the museum.

In other news, the world’s first Happiness Museum has opened in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Images: Van Gogh Museum

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Alice Sarsfield-Hall

Alice is business development manager and looks after blooloop’s clients, new business and events. She studied English Literature and French at the University of Leeds. A Disney and Harry Potter geek, you can usually find her reading, baking or at a museum.

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