Comments on: Museum Makeover

Museum Makeover

sluglicker — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:38:02 -0800

The Art Institute of Chicago's website has been revamped. [T]he goal of this project was to integrate the site with their backend asset management system to allow users to browse the Museum's entire collection online. The changes are pleasing and highly functional. via

By: sluglicker

sluglicker — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:44:47 -0800

Extensive technical details at the via link.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:11:28 -0800

Thanks -- this will please my wife greatly. She loves this sort of stuff -- Art history major, and museum employee, and all. Forwarding now.

By: eriko

eriko — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:43:40 -0800

I love AIC. Amazing place. The best thing *EVAR*. They're building a new wing to hold the Modern art collection. They auctioned off the naming rights. The winner(s) of the auction are anonymous. They spent a staggering amount of money to name the wing. And they named it "The Modern Wing." *WIN*

By: localhuman

localhuman — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:55:45 -0800

Yay! It looks to have been done with Drupal.

By: The Straightener

The Straightener — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:28:25 -0800

Yeeeeessss!!! GIANT IVAN ALBRIGHT.

By: thomas j wise

thomas j wise — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:39:23 -0800

Great link. I spent a lot of time in the AIC when I was a grad student. Also, I've always thought that "your portrait painted by Ivan Albright" would be the best gift ever to give to your worst enemy. Especially if it came out looking like this. (Always gets an "eeek!" from the students when I show the film.)

By: Slack-a-gogo

Slack-a-gogo — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:25:32 -0800

This is pretty damn cool. I like how they've included stuff currently not on display. There are a few old faves in the museum that I haven't seen in years that I hope are up here.. The room with the 4 giant Hubert Robert paintings might be my favorite room in Chicago, but I didn't even know that the AIC had drawings by him as well.

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:33:20 -0800

o oh oh oh ohh oh oh oo o oo ohoh oh uh, cool, thanks. Damn, I love that collection. Check out the Islamic miniatures.

By: aldus_manutius

aldus_manutius — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 07:13:23 -0800

Now this is encouraging ... the cultural heritage sector has always been on the rump of the development curve when it came to getting tools to work with their collections. If you think Micro$$$oft is a monopoly in the OS arena, the content management system software arena for museums, archives, and libraries is even worse. To see the use of drupal as an interface to CITI is pretty darned cool.

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:51:45 -0800

I wish they'd go back to free Tuesdays. I love the AIC but am perennially poor.

By: bassooner

bassooner — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:21:34 -0800

This sculpture by Felix Gonzalez-Torres was my favorite thing at the AIC when I was a kid. I didn't really understand how it was art, but who doesn't appreciate free candy?

By: DenOfSizer

DenOfSizer — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:51:04 -0800

I'm not crazy about the information architecture; don't like having to go to the detail page and then the enlarged view of the artwork, esp. as the provenance info is duplicated on the enlarged view page. Klunky.

By: milestogo

milestogo — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:14:57 -0800

this is great, thanks!

By: fiercecupcake

fiercecupcake — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:49:56 -0800

Holy shit, The Straightener, that was the first thing I looked up. Guess it made an impression, huh? I am so happy about this. Their site was impossible before and now I can visit whenever I want!

By: Wolof

Wolof — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 00:04:42 -0800

*weeps for Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors*

By: SpiffyRob

SpiffyRob — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:06:35 -0800

Displaying search results in category American. Displaying records 1 - 10 of 769. *searches for "View All option* *cries* Such an awesome idea. I hope someone with even basic knowledge of usability drops by their next maintenance meeting.

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:16:27 -0800

I'm managing the process of digitizing the collection at a much, much smaller art museum, and from what I've dealt with, I'm amazed that anybody ever even comes close to getting it right (and I think AIC got most of it very right). So many internal constituencies want to have a say in every point of the process that things like usability turn into just one more side detail to keep in mind. It's pretty amazing, watching art museums (well, all museums, but art museums have a pile of aesthetic considerations that others don't have to struggle with as much) try to figure out the best ways to engage the web. It's like everybody knows there's a really, really important place to get to, but nobody's quite sure where it is.