Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Journeys

Part exhibition, part educational tool, this landmark project uses interactive features to bring powerful stories to life. Rhapsody recently worked with the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT), National Holocaust Centre and Museum (NHCM) and the Jewish Museum (Greece) to develop and create a website that uses an interactive content format, accessibility, and clever digital features to inspire and educate a wide range of audiences about the Holocaust.

The client brief was to create a new international digital platform that would communicate the collection, identification, and curation of four untold Holocaust testimonies, unseen artefacts, and previously inaccessible archival materials to an audience of adults and young people - including teachers and their students - in an inspiring and user-friendly way.

Rhapsody was responsible for heading the idea, creative direction, copywriting, web development, and photography. Our key considerations at concept stage were:

How to address the subject
The best way to portray each person’s story in a
unique and respectful manner while also developing
an appealing and authentic visual identity.

We then moved onto design. We knew we had to create a space that was engaging to an audience with a wide age range and differing levels of knowledge around the subject matter, while making sure the meaning behind each item and journey was kept front and centre. The challenge was to find this balance and maintain it throughout every element of the site, from visual design to tone of voice.

For a seamless user experience, it was imperative that site design blended function, aesthetics, and history seamlessly. The task was to create a navigation system that would allow the user to navigate the narrative while engaging with artefacts, journeys, and stories. The artefacts therefore became an essential component of the design.

We started by photographing each person’s artefact before working on ways to bring them to life, which included creating 360-degree spinrounds to allow the user explore each one in detail. This then led to honing-in on each person’s journey, and developing an interactive map using geocoding navigation to enable users to chart each one and gain an idea of the varying distances covered.

We then carefully selected typefaces. The body copy, caption, and quote type are all Nocturne Serif, which was created by Mateusz Machalski as part of https://kroje.org/. Inspired by Warsaw and based on local typographic traditions, the typeface was in fact the backbone of our web design, and a key element when it came to giving the content a voice.

Tone of voice and language were workshopped with the teams from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, National Holocaust Centre and Museum and the Jewish Museum of Greece to ensure all copy on the site was informative without being intimidating, while any potential gaps in user knowledge were addressed via the addition of pop-out glossary boxes to prevent pages from becoming too text-heavy.

The website was officially launched at an event attended by over 150 people - including John Hajdu MBE, survivor of the Holocaust, who shared his personal experiences, and Enver Solomon, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, who discussed refugee experiences past and present, and the relevance of ‘ordinary objects’ - and was incredibly well received.