15 July 17 Pairing up with Creative Partnerships Australia.

It takes all kinds of tools to bring creativity to life. Actors need a theatre; dancers and musicians need a stage; painters need a canvas or a brush; writers need an idea and a page.

While different creative pursuits have their unique requirements, all artists need support, finance, and guidance to prosper.

That’s where Creative Partnerships Australia comes in: equipping artists and arts organisations with all the tools to succeed—regardless of their craft—to create a more vibrant and sustainable cultural sector.

We recently paired up and dusted off some of our tools to help Creative Partnerships Australia improve the way they connect with artists, arts organisations, supporters and investors.

First up, we set about improving the clarity and structure of content.

Creative Partnerships Australia work with a variety of audiences in all kinds of capacities. There’s a lot on offer for a lot of different people: from fundraising platforms and corporate sponsorships to physical capacity building workshops and events all around the country.

To ensure every audience can access the right content quickly, the home page features segmented navigation tabs. Each of the three buttons curates the first section of the page. Whether you’re an artist searching for a funding program, or a business looking for a sponsorship opportunity, the most relevant content for you takes centre stage with just one click.

Interchanging tabs on the homepage.

If you self-select as an artist for example, you get immediate access to the content, tools, and services that will best support your growth.

More of a supporter than a performer? Quickly and easily find an artist or project and donate via Creative Partnerships Australia’s funding platform, the Australian Cultural Fund, and read case studies outlining the value of your investment in the arts. The three horizontal navigation tabs scroll fluidly on mobile too, to ensure the experience is just as good for people on the go.

Of course, so much of the arts revolves around compelling imagery, so the approach is highly visual as well. The clean typography styling adds elegance but it’s still highly accessible, meeting the accessibility guidelines for WCAG level AA.

Beyond type selection, Creative Partnerships Australia has a huge library of amazing images. We wanted to make the most of it. There’s bold, beautiful photography in some obvious locations throughout the site—mega footer, anyone? —but we embedded imagery in some unexpected places too. After all, the team at Creative Partnerships Australia have art in everything they do. Why shouldn’t the site be the same?

For example, the global menu is designed as a full screen fly-out that showcases a range of rotating photos. It also simplifies navigation in general by recreating the quick-link, audience-specific functionality of the home page design.

Creative Partnerships Australia’s global menu is another chance to showcase some of their awesome photography.

If the menu doesn’t have what you’re looking for right off the bat, ajax based search offers live query results without the need for a page refresh. This means you can find specific content and resources faster.

Ajax based search offers live query results.

Once you’re on a page, subtle content building animations bring things to life while you scroll. The arts are all about piquing interest and prodding the imagination, so we also added a couple of little touches here and there—in the form of key hover animations on icons, links and menu items—to add an understated sense of flair.

Finally, while Creative Partnerships Australia provides comprehensive support for the arts community, the team is also particularly passionate about facilitating corporate partnerships and encouraging large-scale investment in the cultural sector.

After interviewing some key personalities throughout the organisation, we discovered a compelling story and some serious passion around the subject. So, we invested some time and creative energy in articulating the value of investing in creativity.

If a picture tells a thousand words, surely pictures easing in and out of screen through parallax scrolling are even more impactful.

With that in mind, we created a dynamic long-form piece of content with scroll triggered transitions using skrollr.

Whether you’re an artist, an arts organisation, a business, or just a bit of a culture vulture, check out Creative Partnerships Australia and find some inspiration.