Evolving SMK’s online collection

An increased shift to online experiences and emerging technologies highlighted opportunities for the SMK digital team to optimise the user experience of their online collection SMK Open.

The ever growing platform currently features +100.000 artworks from the museum’s collection. And the catalogue is not only for educational or inspirational purposes, it also promotes creative interaction with the artworks: 35,000 of the images are free from copyright which means visitors can download and use them for their own personal and professional projects.


Client: Statens Museum for Kunst
Year: 2021
Scope: UX and UI Design


Evolving SMK’s online collection

An increased shift to online experiences and emerging technologies highlighted opportunities for the SMK digital team to optimise the user experience of their online collection SMK Open.

The ever growing platform currently features +100.000 artworks from the museum’s collection. And the catalogue is not only for educational or inspirational purposes, it also promotes creative interaction with the artworks: 35,000 of the images are free from copyright which means visitors can download and use them for their own personal and professional projects.


Client: Statens Museum for Kunst
Year: 2021
Scope: UX and UI Design


AI-driven design choices

A new and improved search and filter function, and re-designed artwork pages makes a visit of the online collection more intuitive, engaging and delightful.

One of the most fascinating features of the enhanced platform is the algorithm used to recognize and categorise an artwork’s color palette. Not only does this AI – which has been developed in-house by the SMK team – allow the user to search the catalogue by color, but we also put it to work on the artwork profile pages where it determines the background color based on the colors represented in the artwork. On a site that hosts nearly 100.000 profile pages this kind of automation is incredibly valuable when it comes to create designs that integrates seamlessly with the artworks.

Bringing Audio Tours to visitors’ phones

During the Covid19 pandemic SMK naturally retired their on-site audio guide equipment. We designed a mobile site that allows visitors to follow the museum’s various audio tours on their own phones. The visitor autonomously follows color coded QR codes next to selected artworks that are connected to curated tours.

"In mid-2021 we substantially updated and improved the SMK Open UX. Building on the exceptionally solid foundation by design agency 1508, Today Studio was able to translate 18 months of user feedback into significant upgrades to advanced search and overall information architecture. The result is an even better site combining extensive art historical information with an elegant, highly usable interface. In other words: We look forward to our future collaboration!"

Jonas Heide Smith, Head of Digital, SMK

It’s always a beautiful task to make something that is already great even better. We felt extremely lucky to work with the ambitious and resourceful SMK Digital team who truly know their product. They had great insights from the platform’s 1st year of existence which were helpful in optimising the platform’s user experience,  and they were able to provide us with AI in-house technology that allowed us to realise more conceptual ideas which was fantastic. We believe in SMK Open as a platform that will continuously evolve with emerging technologies and user demands and we are looking forward to seeing where it will take us.


Project Lead:
SMK Digital Team
Coding:
Re:
Photography:
Statens Museum for Kunst


It’s always a beautiful task to make something that is already great even better. We felt extremely lucky to work with the ambitious and resourceful SMK Digital team who truly know their product. They had great insights from the platform’s 1st year of existence which were helpful in optimising the platform’s user experience,  and they were able to provide us with AI in-house technology that allowed us to realise more conceptual ideas which was fantastic. We believe in SMK Open as a platform that will continuously evolve with emerging technologies and user demands and we are looking forward to seeing where it will take us.


Project Lead:
SMK Digital Team
Coding:
Re:
Photography:
Statens Museum for Kunst