Atlas Archive
Culture
2023
A public archive that finally reads like the collection.
180,000 objects behind a search box from 2009. We rebuilt the archive so browsing it feels like walking the stacks.
Client
Atlas Archive
Services
Web · Editorial
Duration
8 weeks
Year
2023
Overview
Atlas holds one of the largest photographic archives in the country, and for a decade it was reachable only through a search box that required you to already know what you wanted.
We rebuilt the public site around browsing rather than retrieval, and gave the curators a way to publish an essay without filing a ticket.
180k
Objects online
6.4×
Pages per session
−58%
Search exits
The work
The challenge
An archive is not a shop. Ranking by relevance to a typed query hid everything the collection is actually good at — the runs, the series, the odd adjacencies that make a holding worth visiting.
What we did
We built the interface around the collection's own structure: series, maker, place and date, each a route through the material rather than a filter on a result set. Every object sits in a context that suggests where to go next.
Typography does most of the work. Plates are set large on a dark ground with metadata kept quiet beneath them, and the reading view for curatorial essays uses the same measure as the print catalogue so the two feel like one publication.
The outcome
Pages per session rose more than sixfold and exits from search dropped by well over half. The curatorial team now publishes essays directly, which has turned the archive into something with a schedule rather than a static holding.
