As the firm behind every one of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts‘ exhibition catalogues to date, we were pleased by this tweet from well-known visual arts journalist and critic Tyler Green. The Pulitzer has been a wonderful partner. Thanks, Tyler!
In January, TOKY launched the web catalogue for Reflections of the Buddha, the current exhibition at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. Yesterday, we launched a companion site for “Staging Reflections of the Buddha,” an innovative project that “unites theater, visual arts, and social work to build connections between the art and all audiences while transforming lives and fostering connections between communities.” It’s a highly original program — built on a partnership between the Pulitzer, Prison Performing Arts, St. Patrick Center, and Employment Connection — with free events and performances happening through March. TOKY built the site using WordPress, helping the Pulitzer offer an integrated event calendar that offers, for the first time, seamless ticket reservations through Eventbrite.
TOKY HQ is running high on high-fives, having just learned that we’re up for 11 ADDY awards in this year’s St. Louis competition. We’re particularly pleased with how well the range of work represents our firm’s concentrations, from arts and culture (Laumeier Sculpture Park, CAM, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis) to premium products (Panera Bread) to ”world changers,” as we call them (St. Louis Public Library Foundation, Food Outreach). Congrats to the entire TOKY team, and to the clients we worked with on the projects!
Here’s a look at the TOKY work that’s being recognized this year:
1. “Texts in the City” Invitation, St. Louis Public Library Foundation (related blog post)
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2. Contemporary Fund Mailer, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
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3. “Share the Season” Packaging, Panera Bread (related blog post)
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4. stylus box/catalogue, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
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5. Grab grassy this moment your I’s catalogue, Laumeier Sculpture Park (related blog post)
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6. 2011 Season Poster, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
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7. Dreamscapes website, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
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8. “Design Legends of St. Louis“ Video Series, AIGA St. Louis (one of five videos is shown above)
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9. “Return to Summer” In-Store, Panera Bread (related gallery at Facebook)
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10. “Share the Season” In-Store, Panera Bread (related blog post)
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11. “A Tasteful Affair” Invitation, Food Outreach
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Our thanks to the ADDY judges who have recognized this work! We’re looking forward to celebrating St. Louis creativity with our colleagues at the February ceremony.
TOKY is proud to have designed and developed every one of the exhibition web catalogues for the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, from Ideal [Dis-]Placements to Stylus and everything in between.
This week saw the launch of the full web catalogue for Reflections of the Buddha, its current exhibition of 22 artworks presented in harmony with the Pulitzer’s building, designed by Pritzker-winning architect Tadao Andō. Like all Pulitzer exhibitions, Reflections of the Buddha (the installation and the curatorial commentary) considers the relationship between the artworks and the architecture. The relationship may be even more pronounced in this exhibition, with organizing curator Francesca Herndon-Consagra exploring what happens when centuries-old Buddhist objects are installed in a contemporary building designed by someone who, while not a Buddhist, has been influenced by the Buddhist structures and philosophy of his native Japan.
Here’s a look at a few pages of the site:
Senior curator Francesca Herndon-Consagra’s video introduction, produced by TOKY
A mosaic of the exhibition’s artworks
New this catalogue: TOKY helped the PFA present audio — from Pulitzer staff and outside scholars — to accompany and more fully introduce specific artworks. Visitors to the above page, for example, can click through various points of view of the artwork with the audio (at left) playing continuously.
Pulitzer staff have ongoing, easy access to the blog for continual updates.
The exhibition is on view until March 10. While we like the website, we certainly recommend you see the show yourself, if you can, during an upcoming Wednesday or Saturday.
TOKY recently launched an event site for NMS Management, a premier investor-education company based out of New York. NMS puts on several forums each year, providing educational programming to its members, who are mostly senior investment professionals.
The company’s upcoming Winter Forum for Endowments & Foundations is a members-only event taking place in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the end of this month. NMS wanted to highlight their impressive speaker list, share news and updates, list activities and hotel information, and outline the schedule for the forum.
As participants planned to attend the event, NMS wanted the site to be simple to navigate and the information easy to find. Huge photos of Arizona’s landscape set the tone on the homepage, while tabs provide hassle-free navigation.
We programmed this site in Drupal, an open-source content management system. As you’ll see if you click through, the site is password-protected — but we’ll provide you with a sneak-peek below:
The interactive image grid rearranges itself to fit the width of the user’s browser.
Using Drupal, NMS can easily update the schedule and provide the latest information to attendees.
The above shows just one of 10 stories published in last week’s e-newsletter. Read them all here. Want to receive the next one the day it’s published? Join the list today.
Our work over the past year rebranding the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis has seen the launch of a new identity, new messaging and signage, completely revamped print collateral and an overhaul of the website including a custom content management system. Now, we’re pleased to announce the latest extension of the brand — the CAM St. Louis iPhone App.
The CAM App will provide users with a unique experience each time they launch the app. If launched within the museum, the interface is designed to act as an accessible tool that will help visitors navigate the aesthetic and conceptual landscape of contemporary art. With this app, users will be able to embark on a self-guided digital tour of CAM’s exhibitions currently on view. With each visit, the user is able to move around the space, watch a video tour with architect Brad Cloepfil, listen to the Director speak about the history of the museum, and explore the mission and nature of CAM as a non-collecting institution with Chief Curator Dominic Molon. Continuing the self-guided tour, users will listen as CAM curators introduce them to the work on view. As they explore the artworks, they will actually be able to see and hear the artist(s) talk about specific pieces featured in the show.
Users using the CAM App outside of the museum will be informed as to about how many miles they have to travel before reaching the museum doors. If a user is over 100 miles away, the app functions as an engaging well-designed mobile interface for online museum visitors that represents and enhances the museum’s brand locally, nationally, and internationally. Users are introduced to the CAM mission and programming via several avenues including: access to a shared blog with the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the ability to connect with CAM’s social media platforms, and access to the CAM Channel, which contains a wealth of educational and interpretative content focusing on the current exhibition. Users can also watch artist interviews, listen to discussions with curators and educators, or view performances and public programs that occur in the museum’s Performance Space. Those within a local (100 mile) radius will also see an entire calendar including scrolling featured events and programs hosted by the museum year round.
The CAM App is tied in with the website’s custom content management system, allowing the site administrators to make most edits to the app as they edit the site. This eliminates duplicating efforts and keeps the app content synced with the website content.
Congratulations to CAM for their part in making this a reality. As one of the first museums to launch a fully customized App in St. Louis and joining a handful of leading museums nationally, CAM continues to be a leader in the museum and art fields.
Download the CAM App here
View More of our work for CAM in a Facebook Gallery
Android version of the App to be launched towards the end of 2011.
We’re big fans and supporters of the Grand Center District of St. Louis. It has been great to see the resurgence in the area that is spreading all throughout Midtown. The neighborhood has undergone major transformation since TOKY last designed the site in 2005, and their online presence needed to do the same.
With the new website, GrandCenter.org is now the resource for all events, venues, and developments in the area. Grand Center is home to more than 30 arts organizations that demonstrate the depth and diversity of the city’s cultural life, and now that message is more clearly displayed right up front. Users are welcomed to the site with a randomly populating display of images that link to the most upcoming events. Grand Center site administrators update content in one place to save time managing the constantly changing calendar of events.
This site is a great case study for why sometimes it’s better (and more efficient) to use a custom content management solution to build a site. At no time in the discovery and information architecture part of the process were we forced to retrofit other templated solutions to the site. This means we could create the calendar exactly the way that worked best for Grand Center. In the end, Grand Center has a site that accommodates for multiple unique scheduling scenarios and is flexible for strategic growth in the years to come. Just like the neighborhood.
Check out GrandCenter.org
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Southern gardening guru and TOKY client James Farmer — we relaunched his website early this year — appeared on the wildly popular “Today Show” this morning, talking with Al Roker about bringing the outdoors in for some decorative spice this fall. Congrats, James! And best wishes for the brand new book.
In July, we were proud to announce that the World Chess Hall of Fame had come to TOKY to develop and build its website, in preparation for its fall 2011 opening in St. Louis’ Central West End neighborhood. Our preliminary site, shown above, provided a count-down lead-up to the Hall of Fame’s official September kick-off. When the institution opened its doors last month — across the street, conveniently and strategically, from the Chess Club & Scholastic Center of Saint Louis — the full site went live.
TOKY’s design is a clear nod to the chess-board grid, with a few related smaller touches here and there (with a quick click up top, users can ‘switch sides’ … and color schemes.) We built the site to run on Eero™, TOKY’s own from-scratch CMS that provides a great deal of flexibility and future control for clients. A few highlights from the project:
TOKY has been proud to be part of St. Louis’ ascension as a U.S. chess capital — with the thriving Chess Club & Scholastic Center of Saint Louis hosting national events, two recent “Chess City of the Year” titles from the United States Chess Federation, and now the World Chess Hall of Fame. It’s an exciting addition to our home city.
TOKY Senior Developer Tyler Craft and I happen to be collectors of historic photos and photogravure prints. (Tyler’s taken his collection to a much deeper place than myself.) When an opportunity arose to work on a project showcasing one of the largest private collections of early photography online, we jumped.
Enter David Spencer (“Spence”), a noted photographic historian, collector, and newspaper photojournalist who has been writing about and collecting early photography for many years. Spence was finally ready to bring his extensive photographic collection to the public, and through various connections came upon meeting Tyler and seeing TOKY’s previous work for collections such as photogravure.com.
After six-plus months of work on random weekends and evenings, we launched an important site and contribution to the photo world (built on Eero™, TOKY’s custom Content Management System). We hope that you will spend some time with PhotoSeed, and that you find beauty in its design and value in its scholarship. We look forward to seeing it grow as Spence continues to add thousands of works to the site throughout the coming years.
We’re also very honored to receive any recognition for work like this, and happy when such a labor of love gets the exposure it deserves.
Visit PhotoSeed.com
View the profile on Communication Arts
At TOKY, we love spaces — buildings, interior design, landscape architecture. (Heck, we’re even working with an arts organization called SPACES.) Earlier this year, we had the chance to engage with an internationally prominent company focused on the ground level of great spaces: Tandus Flooring.
Headquartered in Dalton, Georgia, and with showrooms around the world, Tandus is considered a pioneer in its field — its lists of many ‘firsts’ includes the fact that it was the first flooring company to bring modular carpet to North America.
When Tandus came to TOKY to completely overhaul its website, we knew that the company’s mantra — “Innovates & Inspires” — would serve as the project’s framework. We activated the statement “Innovates & Inspires” for the navigation system, placing the four main content areas of the site within these two key words.
Within this framework, TOKY created a flexible template structure that accommodates multiple layers of content across in-depth product pages, extensive case studies, a timeline chronicling Tandus’ record of innovation, and details about its commitment to sustainability.
We really enjoyed working with this new space-improving client, and we’re very gratified that the site’s been a success for the client.
Our neighbors next door design beautiful eco-friendly furniture—we teamed up with them to build a new website and implement a fresh brand (which included a name change, from Tork Design to Mirato).
The new site is fully content managed and built on Eero™, our proprietary CMS. It works seamlessly across a variety of devices — tablets, mobile phones and desktops — and will accommodate their needs as they expand their product line.
Browse through the site while drooling over some amazing tables, desks, benches and shelving.
www.miratodesign.com
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