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October 17, 2005

On display | The Portland Museum of Art hopes a website redesign will resonate with visitors — and produce revenue

By Jennifer Hazard
In 1997, Time Warner Cable used the launch of the Portland Museum of Art's new website to showcase its then-new Road Runner high-speed Internet service. Kristen Levesque, who's been the PMA's director of marketing and public relations for the past 11 years, says the unveiling was an exciting time for the museum. Images of the Road Runner and his Looney Tunes pals were projected throughout the museum foyer, and on a big screen facing Congress Street passersby could see just how quickly the website could operate.

But what was considered state-of-the art in the 90s is decidedly old school in 2005, and the museum's website, www.portlandmuseum.org, was looking dated. So in late August, the museum launched the first update of its site in eight years ˆ— a complete overhaul that features both a clean new look and a host of additional capabilities ranging from online registration and payment to searchable archives of the museum's holdings. "We really wanted visitors to the site to have a positive experience, where all the information they need is readily available," says Levesque.

Early feedback from visitors to the site has been positive, but Levesque says it's too early to tell if the redesign will have an impact on museum revenues. While she hopes it will boost museum coffers, she says a return on investment is not as important as providing potential visitors ˆ— and members of the PMA ˆ— with a reason to come back to both the site and the museum itself. That's in line with trends at museums across the country.

Scott Sayre, co-founder of Sandbox Studios, a Minneapolis-based consulting firm for educational and museum-based technology, says making connections between the actual museum building and its online presence is critical if a site is to draw traffic. "For a museum site to be effective," he says, "it has to encourage visits to the museum, as well as visits to the site itself."

The artists' way
Plans for the new PMA website began in early 2003 with the formation of a Visitor Experience Committee, comprising museum staff members and benefactors whose goal was to make the website and the museum itself more inviting. To begin, the committee focused on updating the museum's logo of three arches, each representing one of its three facilities. In-house graphic designer Karin Lundgren says while staff members identified with the logo and its meaning, most visitors to the museum did not.

The committee hired Portsmouth, N.H.-based Gamble Design to help create an image with a contemporary look and feel. The design of the logo was eventually brought back in-house (see "Back to the drawing board," p. 45), but Lundgren says Gamble Design helped the museum focus on the ideas that the committee wanted to convey ˆ— namely to show that the PMA is an active and exciting museum to visit.

In May 2004, the PMA officially began its site overhaul efforts when its Education Department selected graphic designer Gary LeBrun of GLB Creative in Portland and self-described technology guru Matt Jacobson-Carroll of Integreat Consultants, based on Bailey Island, to design AccessOnline, an educational portion of the site that features interactive arts activities for seventh and eighth graders and is scheduled to launch this month.

LeBrun says the site takes its design cues from the Access workbook, developed by museum staffers and local middle school teachers, but offers activities that are more difficult to accomplish in a traditional classroom setting. One example is a virtual canvas, where students can pick and choose from a variety of graphics to compose a landscape. "Interactive approaches like these help children to explore and enjoy the creative process without being intimidated by technique," says Jacobson-Carroll. "For example, as a child, a designer like Gary would excel in any art project. But for a technology guy like me, well, let's just say I wish this program was available when I was in school."

Impressed by their work on AccessOnline, Levesque decided to hire the pair to develop and design the main museum site in January of this year (she declined to disclose how much the museum spent on their services). She says LeBrun and Jacobson-Carroll were chosen from 25 possible candidates based on their compatibility with the museum's vision. "Their presentation had more of a artistic approach than a corporate one," she says. Jacobson-Carroll adds, "We wanted to show that the PMA is not just a building with art inside ˆ— it's a destination."

LeBrun says the art that is showcased on the site acts as a teaser. For example, visitors to the site can click on any piece of artwork in the museum's permanent collection and a pop-up floor plan will appear showing exactly where the piece can be found in the museum. Levesque says this feature is ideal for students, as it has them accessing both the site and the PMA for research.

Scott Sayre of Sandbox Studios says that many art museums are starting to offer more than what's exhibited in the physical museum on the Web. "Not all of the artwork a museum owns is consistently on view, but the pieces can easily be shown online," he says.

Filling the shopping cart
The redesign also created an opportunity to highlight revenue-producing segments of the museum's offerings. For example, prior to the redesign, Levesque says the site didn't do a good job of reaching people who want to rent space for a wedding or special event at the museum. "Facility use is a substantial moneymaker for museums and, surprisingly, we found that most museum sites don't play up that offering," she says. "We decided to bring that information to the forefront." The "Rent Us" option now appears in the top navigation bar of each page.

The new site also makes it easier for people to give to the PMA. Levesque says interested parties can become members online, donate to the museum's annual fund, sign up for corporate sponsorships or volunteer. Jacobson-Carroll adds that these features create a sense of immediacy; under the old system, potential sponsors or volunteers had to either call or e-mail to express interest, meaning they also had time to change their minds before acting. Already, Levesque says, visitors are taking advantage of capabilities such as online registration; 42 people signed up online for a September excursion to Monhegan.

Levesque hopes response will be equally enthusiastic for the launch of the PMA Museum Store, which should debut late this month. The store is slated to have a similar look and feel to the main site, and shoppers will be able to search for items by name. Shoppers also will be reminded at checkout that PMA members receive a 10% discount (a link to the site's membership page will be available to encourage signups).

Down the road, Levesque would like to add podcasts ˆ— downloadable audio files ˆ— to the site's capabilities. Podcasts have already met with great success at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and experts say they're the next big technology trend for art museums. "Traditionally, museums have had difficulty managing hardware. In the case of podcasts, however, the visitor brings their own device to the museum," says Sayre. "All the museum has to do is provide the programming."

Whether it's the addition of interactive technology or simply updating site content, Levesque hopes the changes will have an impact. "With so many exciting new areas on the site," she says, "there are so many possibilities for growth."

Back to the drawing board

Along with the launch of the Portland Museum of Art's website, the PMA unveiled a new logo in August. The design features a painterly brushstroke sweeping upwards and outside of a square frame, all in a distinct metallic blue. In-house graphic designer Karin Lundgren, who worked on the project along with colleague Teresa LaGrange, says the logo represents the museum's forward movement.

While the design may seem effortless, its creation comes after a year of drafts and revisions. Director of Public Relations Kristen Levesque says the museum first used an outside agency, Gamble Design of Portsmouth, N.H., to develop ideas for the logo's redesign. "The result was a brush mark that looked a lot like the letter 'C,'" she says, smiling. "The museum staff worried that the design too closely resembled the Cialis logo."

When the design project was brought back in-house, Lundgren and LaGrange took the original brushstroke idea and set out to improve upon it. The pair created a book with pages of brush marks, painted in all directions. "We kept trying to decide which was the most exciting element of the stroke, and it suddenly dawned on us that the tip of the brush had the most energy," says Lundgren.

Next they had to choose a color that would work in a variety of applications, such as signage, posters, advertisements and letterhead. Lundgren says the metallic blue, which the staff refers to as PMA blue, functions as a strong color without distracting from the various media it appears in.

As for the simple frame that surrounds the brushstroke, Lundgren says it was added to create an architectural element, as well as a nod to the museum's history. The previous PMA logo, which featured three arches and the tagline "Three centuries of art and architecture," had been inspired by the 2002 restoration of the McLellan House and the L.D.M. Sweat Memorial Galleries.

While the time spent developing the logo may seem excessive, Lundgren says that it's important for a museum ˆ— or any business ˆ— to have an identifying mark. "When you're vying for attention among other advertisers," she says, "your logo needs to be memorable."

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