The Royal Academy of Arts
Bringing the collection to life online
A digital foundation for the Royal Academy of Arts, with design components that draw their colours from real artworks to echo the feeling of being in the gallery.
Challenge
The Royal Academy of Arts has championed art and artists for over 250 years. To serve its audiences into the future, it needed to refresh and strengthen its digital infrastructure, creating a solid, extendable foundation rather than a quick fix. Working as part of manifesto, we partnered with the RA to deliver that. The work also carried a second ambition: to evolve the RA's long-standing brand into a set of digital brand guidelines, modernising the design through the site's reskin so it would serve future RA designers and users alike.
Solution
We began inside the RA's building in London, immersing ourselves in the collection and its surroundings. That visit shaped the whole direction. We wanted the site to echo the feeling of being there in person, so we built design components that draw their colours from real artworks, giving each piece a unique digital presence and bringing the collection to life online.
We worked as a single collaborative unit with the RA's in-house team, combining on-site workshops with periods of autonomous work. What began as a UX project grew into the full design and frontend build of the site. Alongside it, we developed the digital brand guidelines and the pattern library the RA's team still works from today, a living foundation rather than a one-off deliverable. We've recently partnered with them again on their collection uplift, going live soon.
Impact
Rigorous testing underpinned the build. Detailed acceptance and accessibility criteria meant the client had far less to test themselves, the design was followed to the letter, and the result was a pixel-perfect build. Releasing in stages let us review each section and make informed improvements before the next went live.
The homepage went live recently, and early results are strong: average page load dropped from 4.8 to 6.5 seconds down to 3.5 seconds or less, and the accessibility score rose from 86% to 100%.
"Working with manifesto is helping us achieve our aims of delivering a website with an accessible user experience. The team has been a pleasure to work with: knowledgeable, skilled, professional, and also a lovely group of people."
Rachel Walker,
Head of Digital Product & Infrastructure, Royal Academy of Arts