We relaunch vam.ac.uk today and we know – and hope – that there’ll be lots of questions about the new website. In the meantime, we wanted to give you an overview of what we’ve done and why.
Why have we overhauled the website?
It was time to rethink the V&A’s digital presence. Our website was five years old.
We want our website to bring the V&A to life online. We want to open up the Museum’s collections, exhibitions, events, people, activities, ideas and experiences. We want our digital experiences to live up to the V&A’s physical presence as a vibrant, active, continually changing place. So it was time for change.
What do we hope to achieve with the new website?
We want to inspire more people to visit. Our aspiration is to offer a seamless transition from browsing your iPad on the sofa at home, or searching on your desktop at work to turning up to visit the Museum. So the goal for this phase of our digital transformation is to turn more of the 14.5 million visits to our website each year into visits to the Museum.
We also want to define the V&A brand online. We want to do justice to the collections, the galleries and the people that make the V&A so unique. We now use much larger, richer imagery, so there is a better balance between text and image. There is a bolder use of the brand and logo. And these all make for a more cohesive experience across digital and print.
It’s not a refresh, it’s a rebuild. We’ve created a new editorial tool (a content management system) and a new website from scratch. The new site has been built by the V&A’s Digital Media team with product innovation consultancy Made by Many using open source software (Ruby on Rails). That means we now have the freedom to choose what features we build, and when.
What’s new?
But we’re not rebuilding the entire website. We’re starting on a focussed number of pages, and we’ll build out quickly. So the old website and the new will co-exist for a while.
We’ve gone from this:
To this:
We’d love you to explore the new website – including the homepage and our current exhibitions Botticelli Reimagined, Undressed, Paul Strand and our Curtain Up display. Browse our collections pages, including jewellery, fashion and photography and find out what’s in our new Europe 1600-1815 galleries. We also have new pages to help you plan a visit or contact us, as well as learn about us, our learning programmes and events, and our research.
To get the inside story on the making of our new website, read more here.
Any questions?
We hope this post answers some of the first questions you might have, but we know there’ll be more! Please share them below.
I use some of your lovely Renaissance pages as resources for my music students…
Do you have an expected timeframe for when auxiliary pages may move/disappear?
How likely is it that current pages will be completely removed (rather than merely updated)?
Thank you!
Hi Grace,
We’re updating our content migration plan so I can’t give you an exact time at the moment, but it’ll be within the next 12 months. Because those pages haven’t been audited yet, I can’t tell you exactly what will be moved over but, rest assured, they will be updated, not removed. There’s some really valuable content on them – it would be good to hear what you find most useful for your students.
Thanks
Kati
We use the general article “Renaissance music 1400–1600” (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/renaissance-music/) to discuss the musical era overall (and how the culture of the time is reflected not only in the music, but also the physical artwork).
Then we further examine more specific artifacts using the articles:
“Music for the Lute” ( http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/m/music-for-the-lute/ )
“Music for the Harpsichord” ( http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/m/music-for-the-harpsichord/ )
“A notation knife” ( http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/a-notation-knife/ )
Unfortunately, I’ve found that some pages HAVE disappeared – what happened to the Men in Skirts microsite, for example? This does appear to have completely vanished altogether from the site and no searches can bring it up. I’ve found links to it, but the links are dead now. I realise it was nearly 15 years old, but it was still useful and fascinating.
I can’t believe the research facility has disappeared – that was what made your webiste so useful. None of the categories I have typed into the search work, not even the museum number. This is a disaster for researchers – at least you could have kept the old page going why you revamp the website. I’m seriously disappointed. Facilities for online research should be functional, not necessarily ‘state of the art.’ Does any one care if they look dated (i.e. five years old)?
hican yow help me please what doesn t mean when it says work on each group of sts
This is a disaster for me. I am in the midst of a vast research paper that is due tomorrow (only a three week class before anyone berates me for putting this to the last moment), and none of my links to selected pieces work. I search the archives to find the artwork I selected, and if they pop up, the links do not work! It took me hours to find the four pieces I selected from this museum, and now I need to look elsewhere because my citations are illegitimate.
Hi Nikki
So sorry for the additional stress! We have redirects in place so all should be working. Are you using the main website or search the collections? My colleague Richard is on stand by to help you, if you email him at r dot palmer at vam dot ac dot uk. If you give him a list of all the links that aren’t working, he’ll get back to you with a solution. Best of luck!
Kati
Hi Cleo
Do you mean Search the Collections (www.collections.vam.ac.uk)? If so, it’s definitely still there. You can type in museum numbers and other search terms and find what you want. If you mean another part of the site, then do let me know…
Best
Kati
Hi Daniel
We did a tidy up of our microsites quite a long time ago – it was very difficult for a small digital team to support what had become a huge number of microsites on different (ageing) platforms. So, we moved the most valuable content onto the main site. Men in Skirts content can still be viewed at http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/m/men-in-skirts/ and at http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/f/fashion-in-motion-men-in-skirts/. Hope that helps.
Best
Kati
Hi Grace
That’s really useful for our content editors. I’ll let them know you find those articles particularly useful, which they’ll feed into their audit.
Thanks
Kati
Well, I guess you “museum professionals” have to justify your existence somehow.
I really don’t give a flying fig about “updated web sites.” It’s the quality of the information that matters, and bells and whistles are the equivalent of tinplate and paste necklaces. You can give me basic HTML linking to PDFs–more content, less fluff.
Another hint: when you hyperlink every last word in a sentence it becomes unreadable. So why not just put cartoons up instead, for the Global Idiocracy Project, where dolt-wrangling is lucrative but excellence shunned???
NO SEARCH FACILITY????
How on earth did this website get past beta testing without anybody spotting there is no search facility visible on the website? People need to be able to search the website as well as serahc the collections.
I am very upset to find that all sorts of aspects – like Ceramics, Drawings, China, Korea, Japan, Materials and Techniques, ‘What is Craft’ are no longer visible in the collections section of the new website.
Yet again style over substance seems to be the message
This is a ONE STAR rating…..
Hi Katherine,
No search facility – yet! As I mentioned in my other post (https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/?p=28933), only 5% of sessions involve search. The overwhelming majority find our content via Google and other search engines. Ceramics, Drawings, China etc are all still accessible on the old site, and we’re moving that content over to the new site in the course of the next 12 months. We did a lot of testing on the new site, and deliberately started small, rather than spending several years launching another big site. Though we de-prioritised search for launch, we know a site as content rich as ours needs a search facility and we’ll be developing that soon.
Best
Kati
Do you foresee any possibility of the David Bowie is: Exhibition being reproduced either thee or as a touring exhibit. If there is anything I could do to help make that a reality in any way shape or form please email and I will use any and all resources to which I am availed.
Sincerely,
Chip
Hi Chip
David Bowie Is has been on tour since it closed in South Kensington. You can see more here: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/touring-exhibition-david-bowie-is/ – Enjoy!
Kati
Oh no …. Where are the knitting patterns???? That was such a WONDERFUL resource. So far I don’t find the new website nearly as exciting as the new – you have a long way to go I think. Meanwhile why lock off the knitting?
What would be really useful would be a subscription button for the blog and forthcoming event notification via email. The old newsletter was quite good but now you don’t seem to have any direct “push” notifications (Facebook is not reliable when it comes to showing posts and things get lost in the feed easily)
Ditto re knitting patterns .
Hi Ania
We’re looking into how best to allow people to get notifications/subscriptions. Good to know this would be useful for you…
Thanks for sharing.
Kati
Hi Felicity – and Lynn
Sorry, our knitting patterns were a broken link in the move from one system to another. Rest assured – they’re back and you can find them at http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/0-9/1940s-knitting-patterns/
Enjoy!
Kati
Me gustaría tener información, o donde encontrar una foto del escudo de los Caballeros Templarios sobre la capa Pluvial de Sión. Ya que me han comentado que esta en este museo. Es para un trabajo sobre punto de cruz (cross point).
Un cordial saludo y muchas gracias.
Hello
I think you’re after the Syon Cope for your cross point project, which you can find here:
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O93171/the-syon-cope-cope-unknown/
Good luck with the project!
Best
Kati
I love this site, will you be keeping the William Morris sections?
Thanks
WHERE are the subject hub articles? and the gallery guides? I use both of these to teach BA textile students and will really miss them as they had enough info without being overwhelming. Google search is NOT a substitute – I’m trying to get students to move away from google and to use authored sites like yours. I’ll have to direct them to the Met Museum’s Timeline of Art History instead. Disappointed in the V&A, this seems like a step backwards for what was a fantastic resource
Just have to say that for those looking for old articles, they might be found on the Web Archive. And also, this kind of crap where websites constantly move things around is why I always print articles & pages, even if I can only do so through screenshots (if the site lacks decent printing), since websites are NOT trustworthy long-term sources.
I suppose the Patchwork Pattern Maker is no more? If V&A is not going to have that going forward, is there another site/source for it, that you all are aware of?
This seems very buggy – it has taken me several tries to succeed and I found at the end I had to enter my email address for some news letter (duplicating what I get already) to finish.
The advice to concentrate on yr content and to stop tinkering with the appearance of web pages seems sound to me, though it may seem boring to you.
As I receiv d no confirmatory email I checked and discovered my order had not gone through. I tried again got ‘authorisation failed’ again so I’ve given up & will try later.
A further attempt, done with extreme care, has failed – ‘authorisation failed’ AGAIN.
I have in the meantime placed a successful web order with the Guardian so I think the problem lies at your end.
I’ll try again tomorrow lunchtime.
Please add PayPal as a means of payment. It’s easier, quicker, more secure,less prone to error.
On the issues about search and research (some of the related article links are broken) – a link to search collections in the footer on the new homepage is not easy to find.
The bright text on black background is garish and causes eyestrain – not good.
How can I browse previous exhibitions and related microsites/features?
I dislike the new look – what a pity to simplify a rich visual resource into a virtual information desk.
I hope you will take on board the feedback you have received from researchers and educators, and not measure the website’s success by tickets sales.
I can’t find a ‘search’ field on the new site – am I missing something?
please don’t take this content down!!!! http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/p/photography/index.html
I was only able to find it through google and not on your new site. Content is the most important thing; not design
Thank you!
ditto to Randi Bagley-Goodwin’s enquiry in regard to the patchwork pattern maker. .
Hi V&A team!
Having lots of problems buying exhibition tickets – I keep getting ‘authorisation failed’ even though all information is entered and correct.
I’m assuming I won’t have been charged. Can you let me know the best way to proceed?
Thanks,
Jenny
Hi Jenny
Sorry you’re having trouble – best to get in touch with bookings@vam.ac.uk.
Best
Kati
Hi David and Randi
We know how loved the patchwork pattern maker is. It was built on old unsupported technology so we had to take it down. But we are planning to resurrect it later this year. Stay tuned!
Thanks
Kati
I have booked to come to the course called London Life and Times. It firmly says Wednesdays over three terms. But everyday on the program notes is a Friday. I really need to be sure which it is. I did speak to someone at the V&A when I noticed this discrepancy but I nothing has been changed on the website. It is very confusing and if it turns out to be Fridays I won’t be able to attend and would like my money back.
You need to have a PayPal option for booking tickets.
The new website doesn’t seem to provide any way to find closed expeditions — using google search with the exhibition name (if you know it), and limiting to site:vam.ac.uk does work, but that’s definitely not doing things in any way I’d expect.
You’ve mentioned that the old site is still available. How do I access it and how long will it be there? There is a lot of useful material which I can no longer find on the new site.
Thank you
I concur with the many people posting here about retaining the educational content from the old site. I’m a fashion history educator and the content you had organised by century and subject (articles and reading lists) was very good. At the moment there is no way to access this content other than via search engine and there is a banner at the top saying the page is under review. Shudder to think! Please V&A be sensible and continue functioning as an educational resources and not just as a spectacle. What is your mission if not the former?
I have attempted to access the ‘Design a Tile’ section for my pupils to use as part of a William Morris project but is unavailable. Do you have an alternative method for us to access & use this resource please?
Your competition page has tick boxes for receiving information. It will only let you tick on, like an either/or scenario. Just letting you know.
Excellent job on the rest of the site. Beautifully designed.
Dear Kati Price,
I very much enjoyed looking at the new site – the background was somewhat intrusive visually, however, I liked the floating effect of the different exhibitions on top of it. Perhaps the intrusion I feel would depend on the power of the background (I’ve always felt a background should be just that, background). Certainly I will peruse the site in more depth in the future.
“Room 45: Japan” was a great overview of the collection, with excellent descriptions of the objects. The only aspect I would like to have known was measurements e.g. the craftsmanship of an enro or a snuff bottle is perhaps better appreciated when one knows how really small it is.
I wish you success with your continuing digital labours.
Tib Beament
P.S. When, as a young boy I was attending boarding school in Scotland, I used to visit London during my ‘hols’. Either my sister, then living in London, or my mother visiting from Canada, would “park” me in the V&A while they pursued other activities. Thus from an early age the V&A became my babysitter, and I came to know it’s collection as though I lived there. In the subsequent sixty five years it has remained my favourite museum.
Adding to the many people here who’ve emailed from a research/education background – please, keep the reading lists, the videos (I always direct students to the woodblock printing, printing press, miniature painting etc) – and make them easy to find. It’s all very pretty and shiny – and no doubt the functionality is vastly improved in many respects – but at the moment, for instance, there’s no way of finding videos. And the ‘collection’ hubs don’t give any way of getting beyond the ‘search the collections’ interface and ‘learn more about’ – which is a closed loop with only a couple of objects – no contact details for curators etc. I run an undergraduate module on Renaissance material culture, and really value being able to circulate links to resources, as well as encouraging students to explore what’s hitherto been a very user-friendly site. Thank you….
The new site looks gorgeous, but it is very shallow and doesn’t really represent the range and depth of the V&A Collections. I am greatly relieved that Search the Collections is still there, but please, bring back all the collections pages. Where is Furniture? Where is Metalwork? Where is China? Etc. The historical and technical overviews, reading lists, exhibition micro-sites and links were invaluable and there isn’t another website that I know of that provides this information and is so reliably accurate.
Dear Kati
I would love to be able to view and use the new website but unfortunately it does not appear to work on my eight-year-old Macbook (Mac OS X Version 10.6.8, and Safari Version 5.1.10). That is, the text and images and buttons just seem to dot around the page in no coherent order. I’ve pretty much reached the limit on upgrading operating system and software, and I am disappointed to think that the new website won’t work on older machines. I’m a great fan of the V&A and have enjoyed using the website both for research and for visitor information, and would like to continue to do so. Any advice on this problem would be appreciated.
I appreciate your working style at the end just my request is please share with us some more great post
Hmm. Spent 10 mins on your new website failing to find any information about the cast courts which I need to visit for my Open University course. Mr Google brought me to your old website …
We want to book to bring a group of university students to visit the V&A and particularly the 1960s exhibition, after many years of successfully bringing students to your museum. Either you have stopped booking self-guided group visits to exhibitions – and don’t want to state this publically – or you have buried this information very successfully via poor web site design. I am afraid that I really do not find your new website at all helpful.
Please retain the mazarin chest pages and content – they are a unique international resource on lacquer conservation.
Hi! While the article page on 1940s knitting Patterns (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/0-9/1940s-knitting-patterns/) works, the link to the downloadable instructions on said page doesn’t (http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/node/1744 –> 502 Bad Gateway). Will you be putting the instructions back online?
I have been searching for a Brass Rubbing Plate 46: 1533 A Evyngare and wife, All Hallows, Barking,London
Sorry, Kati, I’m not resting assured (May 6, 2016 at 2:09 pm).
The link to the knitting patterns ends in a Bad Gateway message. Searching on the new website produces unusable archived items. Searching Google provides plenty of opportunities to pay for items that previous viewers grabbed before the patterns disappeared from V&A.
The V&A contains beautiful and priceless holdings, but people like me who live outside of Britain can access them only via the Internet.
As a former technical writer, it seems to me that the website redesign may have been overly ambitious, sadly understaffed, and released prematurely. I truly appreciate the enthusiasm that has obviously been invested in this project, and my suggestions are offered with well-intended gentleness:
Perhaps it’s time to step back, take a deep collective breath, and rethink the scope of the redesign in ways that might (1) reduce the craziness and tension I suspect may be exhausting the staff and (2) restore the public’s trust and admiration for the Museum’s potentially magnificent online presence.
Can provide a large Islamic arts book list, see
http://www.tilingsearch.org/outrefs.html
Hi Kati, Thank you for your great article! Very useful tips, you are the expert, thumb up!!!
Will you still be holding Friday Late nights in 2017. I cannot find any reference to them.
I have been searching for a Brass Rubbing Plate 46: 1533 A Evyngare and wife, All Hallows, Barking,London
The link to the knitting patterns ends in a Bad Gateway message. Searching on the new website produces unusable archived items.
…as mentioned above.
Your rework of the website seems to be one of those cases of:
“if it’s not broken, don’t try to fix it.”
Can you please let us know where to access the knitting patterns?
Looks good, but I’m missing a simple search engine (Search and magnifying glass) at the top of the page, like on any V&A page in the ‘old’ layout, such as this one.
Hi guys, looking for any links to the Blyth House video archive of black and diaspora related content, can you help at all please?
It’s for a commission I’m working with the V&A for the 17th Feb [Revolution 600 Revisited]
Thank you
What would be really useful would be a subscription button for the blog and forthcoming event notification via email. The old newsletter was quite good but now you don’t seem to have any direct “push” notifications (Facebook is not reliable when it comes to showing posts and things get lost in the feed easily)
Do you foresee any possibility of the David Bowie is: Exhibition being reproduced either thee or as a touring exhibit. If there is anything I could do to help make that a reality in any way shape or form please email and I will use any and all resources to which I am availed http://www.lecomptoirdelacoteest.com/
we are all still waiting for the patchwork pattern maker to be back, any news on this ?
Hello! I want to echo other educators here–I send my students to your research pages all the time. I’m very sad to see that some of them have disappeared: I can no longer find pages on Gender, Health, Sexuality, and Medicine in Victorian England and Gender in Private and Public Life in the Nineteenth Century. I teach at Boston University, a large research university in the United States, and my students can’t visit the V&A unless they travel abroad, but your research pages have taught them that the V&A is a trusted and respected resource. Please do consider keeping these sorts of pages as part of your website–I know that educators and students all over the world will think well of the V&A because of them.
NEW LINK TO KNITTING PATTERNS DOESN’T WORK. Yes, the link in the response above takes you a page of pictures — but the link to the patterns on this page STILL doesn’t work.
Is this being repaired? Or are you making this content unavailable?
Ditto knitting patterns. Went to download a couple for my blog and just get a bad gateway. Please don’t take them away.
It is nearly a year since you promised to bring back
the patchwork pattern maker. Where is it please?
I have read through the comments about the new website, and the link given for the knitting patterns takes you to the main page for the knitting patterns, but the link to take you to where you can download them is broken and keeps coming up with an error message. I hope soon that many of the errors with the move can be fixed as well as this one. Thank you.
Unfortunately, I’ve found that some pages HAVE disappeared – what happened to the Men in Skirts microsite, for example? This does appear to have completely vanished altogether from the site and no searches can bring it up. I’ve found links to it, but the links are dead now. http://www.miratoedi.ch/ I realise it was nearly 15 years old, but it was still useful and fascinating.
I’ve tried the link to the knitting patterns and it has failed, as it seems it has for a good number of people over a s long period. It’s obviously very popular, wouldn’t it be a good idea to sort it out quickly?
What would be really useful would be a subscription button for the blog and forthcoming event notification via email. The old newsletter was quite good but now you don’t seem to have any direct “push” notifications (Facebook is not reliable when it comes to showing posts and things get lost in the feed easily)
Unfortunately, I’ve found that some pages HAVE disappeared – what happened to the Men in Skirts microsite, for example? This does appear to have completely vanished altogether from the site and no searches can bring it up. I’ve found links to it, but the links are dead now. http://www.muc72.fr/boutique I realise it was nearly 15 years old, but it was still useful and fascinating.
Is the material on the Europe 1600-1815 galleries on the ‘old website’ just going to disappear? It can only have been written quite recently as these galleries only reopened in December 2015 and the information there is much more detailed and useful than the extremely limited information on the new page devoted to the gallery, which seem really dumbed down by comparison. I want to be able to refer students to these pages for teaching purposes and I don’t to risk referring them to material that isn’t there. Thanks.
Please advise the NEW link to the pattern creator that was on the old website. The old link is: http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/quilts/patchwork
**This is a valuable tool!!
At what point does one abandon hubris for function?
Your rework of the website seems to be one of those cases of:
“if it’s not broken, don’t try to fix it.”
Can you please let us know where to access the knitting patterns?
Hi, I have come to the new style website to buy Japanese custom prints but have found the view all prints page will not load and therefore cannot browse through. I am using a fairly new apple tablet and have tried it on both safari and chrome and it doesn’t work. It’s a real shame as I really wanted to buy one but wanted to browse what’s fully on offer first! Really hope the shop gets sorted and any problems are ironed out. Marianne
Unfortunately, I’ve found that some pages HAVE disappeared – what happened to the Men in Skirts microsite, for example? This does appear to have completely vanished altogether from the site and no searches can bring it up. I’ve found links to it, but the links are dead now. I realise it was nearly 15 years old, but it was still useful and fascinating.
I really enjoyed your historical fashion page “Historical Periods in Stage Costume”; but would like to know who the author is. I couldn’t see a reference to one. After investigating your web site, I am very interested in visiting England just so I can go to the museum!
good post
Unfortunately, I’ve found that some pages HAVE disappeared – what happened to the Men in Skirts microsite, for example? This does appear to have completely vanished altogether from the site and no searches can bring it up. I’ve found links to it, but the links are dead now. I realise it was nearly 15 years old, but it was still useful and fascinating.
STILL no Patchwork Pattern Maker… And I note that you are no longer bothering to respond to comments, which is not a good look. If you were, you’d see that this thread is starting to attract rather a lot of spam. Also not a good look for an institution as prestigious as the V&A… I’m not finding the new website user friendly, the functionality is very hit and miss, and clearly this experience is not unique to me. Any chance of an update on the Patchwork Pattern Maker, which was something I used a lot.
I suppose the Patchwork Pattern Maker is no more?
Porfavor subanlo nuevamente !!!
This does appear to have completely vanished altogether from the site and no searches can bring it up. I’ve found links to it, but the links are dead now. I realise it was nearly 15 years old, but it was still useful and fascinating.
Unfortunately, I’ve found that some pages HAVE disappeared – what happened to the Men in Skirts microsite, for example?
. I’ve found links to it, but the links are dead now. I realise it was nearly 15 years old, but it was still useful and fascinating.
Unfortunately, I’ve found that some pages HAVE disappeared
The new website it’s user friendly. For broken link, use 301 redirect so the loyal visitor still can access the content.
Thanks the web site is very strikeing but not so user friendly. Lists of Family Trails have disapeared (just that you have them not what they are) ditto back packs.
Very hard to find when events are. Whets the appetite but does not deliver information.If there is a calender of events and tours its not easy to find (like the national gallery). planning a visit is very important.
Would also be good to have an internal map that one can print out. Smart phones are not a good navigational tool and one just wants to print something out and look at it. Also young people visiting the gallery do not have unlimited data nor do people on lower incomes.
Please add one more voice searching for the Patchwork Pattern Maker. I’m waiting, but rather impatiently, for news of your progress in returning it to your site.
I tried to book the member only talk by Aubrey Powell on 14 September re Pink Floyd Album Cover on my pc, but couldn’t find the member log in area. booked on my iPhone in the end from the link in the email that you sent. Are you restoring this please?
Excellent article I found it on msn while doing research on server racks.
Excellent post, great job. Keep it up!
I do hope you keep this page, or, more specifically, the video embedded on it:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/videos/m/video-making-a-pietre-dure-panel/
I got there looking for background about the Pietra Dura table in Charlecote House.
The table is a magnificent piece, and tells a wonderful story about the skills of the artists and the market in which they worked. The video on your page is a very useful contribution to this story. I hope very much it survives the redesign.
I enjoyed this thanks a lot but i find some links broken was it moved or deleted ?
I too am an aspiring blog writer but I’m still new to the whole thing. Do you have any helpful hints for newbie blog writers?
Hello, just a question.
Is the site finished, or will we expect new surprises?
How can I save or print the knitting patterns please, there is a link but it just goes to a picture of a mirror.
If you click on an image of a pattern it opens in an a separate window but no option to print or save there either. Thanks.
I couldn’t find a search function – I wanted to learn more about rococo, how do I do that on this site?
I started researching my grandparents. I found my Grandfather, John Fraser born Mid Calder, near Glasgow 1885, married my Grandmother Marjorie Doris Smith in January 1915 in Leeds. In the 1911 census she was 17, listed as an actress, living in Fulham, London. I know she was on the stage, and did music hall, probably under the name of Marjorie Laurence/ Lawrence. Possibly my grandparents met when she was on stage in Glasgow, and certainly they must of married in Leeds because she was on stage there in 1915.I understand she did some music hall, and pantomime, but I have not been able to find anything about her career. Would you be able to tell me where to start.Thank you.Maureen Neller
I like the new look a lot, great job guys.
where I can find the past exhibitions? thank you
I too am a trying site author however I’m still new to the entire thing. Do you have any accommodating insights for beginner blog scholars?
this is really nice to read..informative post is very good to read..thanks a lot.
Nice overhauled site, cant wait to see what you guys coming up with next. If you need more powerful hosting let us know. we love the fact that you take special interest in details. keep it up and look forward to seeing what you come up with next. http://netcloudspace.com
It is over a year since I visited Vam’s website and I must say the home page look is quite refreshing.
The black background with the white font is easy on the eye and navigation also seems simplified. Good work guys.
new design, more attractive, i like the new web design!
Adding to the many people here who’ve emailed from a research/education background – please, keep the reading lists, the videos (I always direct students to the woodblock printing, printing press, miniature painting etc) – and make them easy to find
http://www.webart.fr/
Unfortunately, I’ve found that some pages HAVE disappeared – what happened to the Men in Skirts microsite, for example? This does appear to have completely vanished altogether from the site and no searches can bring it up. I
http://www.livre-dor.net/livre.php?livredor=131990
Unfortunately, I’ve found that some pages HAVE disappeared – what happened to the Men in Skirts microsite, for example? This does appear to have completely vanished altogether from the site and no searches can bring it up. I
Please keep everyone’s links and bookmarks working.
I am researching on primitive lamps used by Dutch missionaries in South India. I have collected some of them, but couldn’t find the period they were in use. Can anybody help? Some photos are posted in my Facebook page Deepanjali lamp museum.
I have attempted to access the ‘Design a Tile’ section for my pupils to use as part of a William Morris project but is unavailable. Do you have an alternative method for us to access & use this resource please?
I like the new design. It is much easier to navigate.
Visiting the museum is a great experience and I have enjoyed it.
Victoria and Albert Museum has always been a lighthouse in our dark age of social media and brutal/crude materialism.
Vinaigre de Cidre
I have no problem with the new design. Everything looks great!
I work on the Discovering Literature website at the British Library and I’m very interested in seeing the two manuscripts of RB Sheridan’s The School for Scandal, which are mentioned on your website. I’d be hugely grateful if you could direct me to images of these in some other format?
Love the new site layout & design, much simpler navigation and user interface.
Cool new design i must say. Your UX guys have done a really great job in creating the new site design.
It’s great to have such an amazing website and I will often visit
Nice website, thanks for sharing all informations with us, David
“Our website was five years old”.
Five years – shock, horror! Well, I’m 67 years old and I guess that means you and your kind think we need replacing too – at least if we can’t keep up. Meanwhile, thanks for the lack of responses to all the comments here, and for all the tedious spam you apparently can’t be bothered to remove. In truth the main thing I’m still struggling with is the NAL catalogue, which is now so much more confusing and complicated to use, with a search box that inexplicably covers everything in the V&A – just a bloody nuisance if you’re only looking for a library book. And of course you junked all my saved titles, the work of many years, that were on the old system without any proactive attempt to warn us; and then published the lie that staff could still retrieve the old information if asked (they can’t or won’t) – a lie that is still up there on your website today. See https://vanda-production-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/2018/01/15/12/10/31/aa737863-d0a7-4f11-94f7-f1ace8117362/Library%20Catalogue%20FAQs.pdf
Interesting to see that the British National Art Library is now apparently part of something called Vanda Production Assets.
There used to be an adage that served mankind well: ‘If it works, don’t fix it’. The new version seems to be, ‘If it works, than you MUST spend a million (or whatever it takes) hiring some IT kids who know lots about computers but nothing about art & books and how people over the age of 30 relate to them, and DO ask them to fix it.’
Thanks a bunch.
Hi Ossie
All very valid points – we’re sorting out our issue with spam.
We on the digital media team don’t look after the NAL catalogue I’m afraid, but I’ve forwarded your comments, so you should get a response from them soon.
Best
Kati
I would like to know how to find patchwork patternmaker as the comments say it should be available thank you
Great work.
amazing stuff!
Such an amazing website design, I like the website layout and it is user-friendly which is easy to navigate. Good Work!!
I really like the article that you wrote in this blog something very nice to follow
Great work.
You are doing great job guys, always benchmarking excellence!
Nice. I really like the new look.
Great work.
Killer look!
Great work, amazing content. Looking forward for more content.
So what did you ever do with the Patchwork Pattern Maker???? SO many people loved that tool. A promise that you were going to bring it back after this redesign and it appears to be a promise unfulfilled. So sad to loose something that brings people back to your site over and over. Any updated or did you just abandon it?
Tk
So what did you ever do with the Patchwork Pattern Maker???? SO many people loved that tool. A promise that you were going to bring it back after this redesign and it appears to be a promise unfulfilled. So sad to loose something that brings people back to your site over and over. Any updated or did you just abandon it?
The new V&A Museum website looks fantastic! The clean design and user-friendly interface make it so much easier to explore the vast collection of art and history. I especially love the enhanced search functionality, which allows me to find specific pieces and exhibitions quickly. The added multimedia content, like videos and interactive features, really enriches the online experience. It’s exciting to see how the museum is using technology to make art and culture more accessible to everyone. Great job to the team for creating such an engaging and informative platform!
The new V&A Museum website is impressive! Its sleek design and easy navigation make exploring the collections a joy. The high-quality images and detailed descriptions bring the exhibits to life, and the improved mobile usability is a great touch. Well done to the team for creating such an engaging and accessible digital experience!