In mid 2018 we were delighted to find out that the 100 Archive was successful in an application for a community heritage grant from the Heritage Council as part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage (EYCH). The aim of the EYCH Community Heritage Grant scheme was to promote appreciation and enjoyment of heritage, to make a lasting difference to heritage, people and communities, to promote a bottom up approach to heritage management and to reach out to new audiences by telling heritage stories in innovative ways to stimulate public interest and engagement.
The Heritage Council saw in the 100 Archive an innovative, design community-led initiative to recognise design as a vital part of Ireland’s cultural heritage and as such gave us a grant to help us to redesign and begin to redevelop 100archive.com. We want to make our website a means for designers to better reflect the role they play in the design community and for increasing numbers of the general public to explore and enjoy communication design. We have been planning how best to do this since late 2017 and with the support of the Heritage Council we were able to bring Post design studio on board to help us bring those plans to life.
While this project is still very much a work in progress with more changes and improvements still to come over the next number of months, the folks at Post (with invaluable support from a number of volunteers including Naoise Ó Conchubhair, James Delaney and Cillian Ó Mongáin) have helped us achieve the following things:
— a brand new look and feel for the site, currently available to browse at new.100archive.com
— clearer and more engaging written content across the new site
— more user-friendly navigation
— designs for new profile options for designers, workplaces and institutions
— improvements in speed and performance on the new site
There is more in the works, and as further improvements are made on the new site over the coming months we will migrate everything over. Bear with us while we do, but do feel free to drop us a line if you have any questions or comments.