iF Design Award
Webby's honoree
Dutch Creativity Awards nominee
It is always time for Dutch Design
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The brief
- Challenge us to create the most innovative digital brand experience and bring it to life at all digital touchpoints.
- Think holistically and smart: a minimum viable product is a great start.
- Enable cross-platform integrations for a steady and easy user flow, both for the community as the visitors.
Digital consultancy - Digital Identity - UX/UI Design - Service Design - Front-End Development - Back-End Development
Continuously moving forward: Design Time
Design is constantly in motion, reacting to what's happening in society and what needs to be redefined. To increase the brand experience of Dutch Design Week online, we are building the website on the foundation of Design Time.
Different phases, different user experience
Design Time means that the website and user experience moves throughout different phases of the year, in service of the participating designers. This way, the website is not only relevant during the festival itself, but functions as a stable beacon for the design community.
The concept of Design Time influences the choices in development, content algorithm and user experience. The website algorithm for example showcases content dynamically, depending on user interaction, relevance or editorial calendars.
It’s always time for design, learn more about the strategic concept →
Cross-platform integration
Dutch Design Week is just one of the manifestations of Dutch Design Foundation. Dutch Design Awards, What If! Lab, World Design Embassies, all function within one CRM-system. In the back-end, we’ve developed a stable connection between all these manifestations with the use of an API. This enables Dutch Design Foundation to do cross-platform promotions, and services the design community to create a single log-in storing all the necessary information in one place.
*What if Lab challenges the business community and design world to come up with specific answers to current issues. Build on the same principles as the Dutch Design Week website, we created a platform to make these ideas a reality. Find out more about What if Lab →
Smooth serverless
From this strategic base, we are able to continuously optimise one experience at a time, shifting focus from the DDW visitor to participating designers or to enhance tools for the professional community. Thanks to our serverless-environment, the digital platform is able to welcome millions of users in a fraction of a second.
In development we always focus on performance, loading time and mobile usage, enabling the possibility to welcome millions of visitors in a blink of an eye.More about the technical set-up can be found in the Dutch Magazine Emerce.
A collaboration of this kind requires enormous trust in each other’s abilities. We had to build the bridge as we walked on it. Over the years, we have formed a strong partnership, which is why we dared to take on such ambitious projects together with Vruchtvlees.
Building sensory spaces: a virtual design extravaganza
With the back-end in place, it’s the user experience where the brand Dutch Design Week comes to life. Edition 2020 opened the doors to the biggest virtual design festival in the world. With the use of smart tooling like Vimeo embeds, we bypassed expensive subscription models. The real-time program moves with the program, scheduled by both the organisation as the participating designers.
750 Unique experiences
The Dutch Design community could easily schedule a live stream, chat or create a digital exhibition, and add it to the digital program themselves. To create tangible experiences online, we need to redefine what makes a space. The designers set an ambiance by playing with colours, the shape of the room (sharp and edgy or round and warm) and the amount of light, sound and video. With a custom build interface and presets, designers can personalize their digital exhibitions with ease.
How do you create a tangible experience? The idea of virtual light was the subject of long, interesting discussions at Vruchtvlees. And pioneers like Nite Hotel, Wolfenstein 3D and the iconic Windows screensaver set the right tone. Dive into the concept of 3D rooms →
The results are promising every year:
- Online conversions have increased by 200%.
- Time on site grows every year, with an average of 6:20 minutes in the 2020 edition.
- 750 digital exhibitions were created, forming a total length of 126.307 kilometers.
With the use of What If Lab, designers Imke Sloos, Anna Dienemann and The Incredible Machine Design Studio brought to life innovative solutions for a social distanced event.
As soon as the festival ends, we start working on the backlog for the next edition. We keep learning from the data and user feedback and continuously evaluate and evolve on making Dutch Design on Demand a reality.
Dutch Design Week is a collaborative effort between Dutch Design Foundation, Vruchtvlees (Digital Design & Web Development) Yorit Kluitman & Johan Moorman (brand identity), Damon van Drimmelen (CGI), Blickfänger (Video), Niels Groenendijk (motion) and Frank Sens (sound).
Michael Danker
Co-founder - Digital Director
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