ARCHIVA

ARCHIVA holds a large collection of photographs, letters and recordings documenting a region’s cultural life. Most of it was catalogued but effectively invisible online.

The existing site was a search box over a database. Visitors who did not already know what to look for left immediately, and researchers found the metadata hard to navigate.

Archives are stories waiting for an entry point. The website needed to serve two audiences — the curious visitor and the specialist — without diluting either experience.

An editorial front door of curated stories and themes, layered over a precise, filterable collection browser. Every story links into the collection and every record links back to stories.

We designed the information architecture, editorial templates, a component-based design system and a fast, accessible front end connected to the archive’s existing catalogue.

Curators publish new stories from reusable modules, and the same components power the collection browser, keeping the experience coherent as the archive grows.

Visitors now arrive through stories and stay to explore, and the archive’s team can publish new themes independently without development work.

Accessibility shaped the whole project. Designing for keyboard, screen-reader and low-bandwidth users first made the archive clearer for everyone.