Watercolour World - a colossal database of geo-tagged rich data that we turned into a manageable & growing web app.
A genuinely fascinating and engaging project; a presentation of a database of painted works so immersive and layered as to hold our attention solidly for the last 6 months of 2018.
The Watercolour World is a UK Charity set up specifically to digitally document as many global pre-photography documentary watercolours as they can realistically lay their hands on - an ongoing (and hopefully never ending) project to preserve these academically invaluable assets for future generations.
Watercolour World were already one website into their lifecycle when they came to us; it had become apparent that theirs was a proposition with considerable “heft” - that delivery of their content, and the many and varied means by which that content should be navigated, required calling in the big boys (us) to deliver their rapidly expanding database of high-resolution artworks through an intuitive and engaging website.
This was a rapidly developing proposition in terms of scope and technology; the commissioned Minimum Viable Product very quickly became something quite polished and slick - not least because of the technology we chose to employ to deliver key assets and facilitate search.
By the time of launch The Watercolour World took delivery of a fully functioning online database of many tens of thousands of stunning paintings - all indexed and searchable by numerous means; tags, fields and of course the marvellous map.
“3B won The Watercolour World website development contract, following a 5 way agency pitch, due to their thought provoking, researched and enthusiastic response. Their approach continued throughout the development of the project working within the confines of our tight and fixed budget. As an extended part of our team they dovetailed with our collection publishing process, and designed the infrastructure for a heavy data driven site. By actively sourcing bleeding edge 3rd party tools they delivered key functionality including powerful map and keyword searches, whilst also optimising costs for us. Thanks to the 3B team we have launched the first stage of our vision for this project, with more to come...”
Andra Fitzherbert, CEO The Watercolour World
