Ico creates online exhibition for Crafts Council’s 40th birthday

The website showcases 40 objects from the organisation’s collection spanning its 40 years of existence. 

Ico Design creative director Steve Lloyd, who led the project, says, ‘The Crafts Council wanted an interesting and innovative way to display the 40 objects.’

The consultancy styled the site with a minimal contemporary take on Victorian ephemera. It combined a single colour from the Crafts Council palette with either black or white type ‘to create a pared-back simplicity that makes the object the hero,’ Ico Design says.

The aim of the project was also to create a visual filtering system so that the objects can be explored in a dynamic way, the consultancy says.

Each piece has a lot of information associated with it and the format is designed to treat each one as a separate story. Ico Design used the idea of exhibiting a record card for each object containing information on the piece, maker and a personal commentary from a guest maker, curator or critic.

The Crafts Council appointed Ico Design for the online exhibition project in October this year through a pitching process. It took the consultancy six weeks to complete the task, with the final week used for testing only.

The main challenge Ico Design faced was creating a multiple device compatible with other viewing platforms, such as mobile phones. To achieve this aim, the agency used the jQuery plugin Isotope, which ‘enabled us to have a dynamic visual filtering across all platforms,’ Lloyd says.

Six newly commissioned works, which respond to the chosen pieces in the show, accompany the main online exhibition. Called ‘Inspired!’, this section features work by Chris Haughton, It’s Nice That, John Agard, Prick your Finger, Paul Adrian and Scanner.