Services Rendered:
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The Project:
This has been an exciting opportunity for Terabyte to be
involved with a project that has such historical and cultural
significance.
Highlights:
Designing and developing a specialised portrait viewing
browser
- Developed in Flash Action Script
- Feels like you are walking down a gallery
- Allows the user to experience a high level of detail within a
painting to the extent that you can even see the brush strokes and
canvas texture
- Wraps the image in a beautiful wooden frame, resizes as the
images change
- Fully content managed via the Umbraco Content Management
System
Designing and developing the visitors book image browser
- Navigation of the visitors book is visually like turning pages
in the actual diaries and feels very real
- The user can also zoom in to see a high level of detail
- Displays translations of the content in te reo and English
- Users can make their own comments on the visitors' book and its
content
Detailed Research
- Users can view detailed research on each portrait and its
sitter
- They can view photos, where available, of the sitter, view
their Iwi/Hapu affiliations including a map showing their
region
Creating a community
- Users can search the site for sitters that are affiliated with
their own Iwi or Hapu a way of them connecting with their
history
- Users can register for a forum on the site where they can share
their thoughts ideas and experiences and discuss the portraits and
the visitors book
- Users can view videos of modern day relatives of sitters
discussing the history and stories of their ancestors and the
importance of the portraits
- Users can submit their own stories that relate to the Lindauer
Portraits for incorporation into the site itself
- Users can sign an online guestbook, a way of them leaving their
mark in the same way views of the past left a record on the
original Visitors Book.
What some of our Team members said about working on the
project…
Jane Melville - Sales Director
"Every now and again we get asked to pitch for projects that
light up our imaginations. A combination of superb content and a
dynamic client will do it!
When we pitched for the Lindauer project, we couldn't help
ourselves. We went all-out and there were many robust discussions
as to who the pitch and ultimately the project team would be.
You know it is going to be magic when this happens!"
Rachael Devcich - Art Director
"It's not often we get the opportunity to present such historic
and emotive material online and we certainly relished the
opportunity to be part of that history moving forward. Designing
for a harmony of aesthetics, usability and functionality always has
it's challenges and with no existing brand or collateral to work
with, we certainly had our work cut out for us.
By creating a logo based on Lindauer's actual signature and
using a site colour palette taken from the paintings themselves we
strived to present the Portraits and Visitors' Book in a respectful
and complimentary surrounding. We used real-life experiences to
influence the appearance and functionality of content - framed
portraits that appear to be hanging on a gallery wall, a book you
can turn the pages of - to enhance the special nature of the
material and to further involve and encourage users to interact in
a modern environment."
Adam Wright - Senior Frontend Developer
"The image browser combines a flash frontend with a custom-built
Umbraco module to deliver the stunning images that make up the
collection in great detail. The user can zoom in to see the
individual brushstrokes, and only the portion of the image they are
looking at is requested from the server, saving the user bandwidth
and decreasing load times. It was choice to work on a project that
used such beautiful source material."
The Terabyte Lindauer Online Project Team (click image
to see all images)
Link to press ready
high resolution images of the Terabyte Team (6 images)