The State Darwin
Museum
Background
The State Darwin Museum is a natural history museum, founded in 1907 by Alexander Kohts, Doctor of Biological Sciences. It was the world’s first museum of evolution.
The museum aims to develop and spread the achievements made in various areas of modern biology and in the animalism genre of art. Its main goal is to make this knowledge interesting and available for the general public.
The concept
The ammonite is a symbol of evolution and a part of the museum’s existing logo. To freshen up the look and make it more interactive we’ve added a new meaning to it.
The kaleidoscope — a symbol of continuous looping movement. The bright patterns inspired by nature motifs became a worthy addition to the existing branding and a fitting element of the new identity vision which we showcased on our website.
The goal of this project was to make a website which would be not just modern and convenient to navigate, but also accessible to all. We also wanted to emphasize the museum’s aims in serving the active spread and popularization of science.
The kaleidoscope spins on its axis when you scroll the page. This allows both to highlight the museum’s new branding and to provide information on the new exhibitions to the user in a playful manner, while also making sure nothing important is missed.
Homepage
We decided to showcase only the current time-sensitive exhibitions on the homepage so that the user could see them immediately. The size and location of the images make information easily accessible and simplify navigation.
Modern users use their smartphones to access websites more and more often, which is why we have created a mobile version of the website. This will emphasize the museum’s readiness to use modern methods in popularizing science.
The exhibition page
Exhibition information is located inside a modal window. It allows for quick, targeted, and contextual interaction with the information.
A modal window does not require loading a new webpage, thus reducing traffic and optimizing the website.
Exhibit main information and the ticket purchase button were placed on the first screen, so that the user can easily access important details and make a decision.
If the user wants to read about the exhibition in more detail and scrolls down, the right part of the page will be fixed, allowing them to move to purchasing a ticket at any time.
To use this design feature in the desktop version, we’ve made a similar and easy to use feature for the mobile version.
Menu page
The header is always fixed so that the user has access to menu and accessibility buttons at all times. The latter one is necessary so that people with vision impairments can gain the information they need. Pressing this button calls up a special plugin which allows the user to tweak the website appearance for their needs.
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The website section list is neatly organized in both the desktop and mobile version, ensuring easy navigation.
The function is also available from the menu itself, so that the user can disable it from that screen as well.
Contact page
The page contains the museum general information and a simple feedback form. The form uses few boxes so that asking a question is straightforward.
Results
In the end, we created a website that clearly showcases the museum's commitment to popularizing the evolution theory achievements. At the same, the website makes this knowledge interesting and accessible for everyone. Reading through the currently held exhibitions is quick and easy, and buying a ticket for one takes but a single click.
