A Digital Universe for The Augustinus Foundation
The Augustinus Foundation is one of Denmark's significant cultural foundations. The focus of its philanthropic work is primarily on the preservation, dissemination, and research of cultural heritage, as well as ensuring the development of creative and performing arts such as music, dance, and visual arts. The foundation also supports social and humanitarian efforts in Denmark and internationally. Through long-term philanthropy, the foundation contributes to Danish society both now and in the future.
The Augustinus Foundation has an ambition to clarify the foundation's position and unify communication across channels. To achieve this, the foundation needed a new website with a new digital identity that would also support user-friendliness and accessibility for the diverse target audiences the foundation engages with.
The Augustinus Foundation's website serves as the digital gateway to the foundation, offering a universe of projects in art, culture, research, and social initiatives. A digital universe has been created that meets the world's knowledge needs and interests in the foundation's work, support opportunities, and impact on society. The focus has been on creating a good user experience based on best practices that deliver the desired value to the user while ensuring that applicants find the content and inspiration they are looking for.
The solution is built in Next with Sanity as the CMS. Sanity is an extremely flexible CMS that can be customized to the client's needs and desires, as the frontend can be expanded without the use of a backend. Typescript, Cypress Test, and Shadcn/UI have also been used, and to make the website more dynamic, Framer has been employed for block animation and page transitions.
Augustinus Foundation wanted a website that, with a more dynamic and contemporary visual language, could help present projects to inspire applicants and thereby clarify the foundation's contribution to society.
The design concept takes inspiration from the foundation's existing design profile with rich visual material and the use of colors, translated into the idea of a 'chameleon' that uses its ability to change color as a communication tactic. With that in mind, we have created an adaptive color system that changes color based on the image presented on the respective page. The color system allows the foundation to communicate in two ways - subdued and subtle when communicating about the foundation itself, and more colorful and vibrant when communicating about the projects the foundation supports. The dynamic color system is supported by the CMS.
In the project, we have also updated the foundation's toolbox with the font Fragment Glare – a serif font that is both stylish and classic but with a touch of playful elements. Additionally, we have created a set of new UI icons, symbols, and illustrations (the latter in collaboration with Benny Box) to further help the foundation appear relevant and inspiring.
The website was launched on February 27, 2024, so there are not many results yet. We will update the case as soon as we have more data.
"The Augustinus Foundation is tasked with an important mission to meet the world's need for insight into the foundation's philanthropic work. The website serves as the central digital gateway. We aimed to create a digital universe that, both technically and visually, best presents the foundation's contributions to Danish society through grants for art, culture, research, and social initiatives. In the project, we have particularly focused on qualifying the user perspective and creating a platform that can evolve alongside the foundation. From the very first day, Dwarf set the course for the project with a secure framework and direction, and we have consistently encountered dialogue, competent advice, and process management. We especially appreciate the professionalism and enthusiasm for the project that we have encountered from everyone in the team."
