Getty

Getty
Presents:
Mesopotamia

Architecture, Art & Design / Webby and People's Voice Winner
Getty

Architecture, Art & Design

Webby and People's Voice Winner
"The pillars of this project are fidelity, scholarship and delight. To ensure this balance, Getty assembled a cross-functional project team spanning technologists, academics and creatives." Getty
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Q: Can you describe your project and the concept behind it? A: Getty sought to share its sweeping exhibition on Mesopotamia online in a way that would honor the impact of the in-person experience while taking advantage of the unique affordances of digital. The result is an immersive web feature that offers a closer look at these extraordinary objects than what could be achieved in a gallery setting.
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Q: Tell us about your initial moodboard, wireframe, or prototype. How did things change throughout the process? A: Getty’s first approach was to capture the entire exhibition in 3D. They modeled the space in LIDAR and Structured Light scanning, then wrapped the model in photogrammetry image data. But rather than recreate the entire exhibition, Getty determined it would be more compelling to highlight key objects, as it enabled a much closer look at fine details. The resulting object renders were gorgeous, and informed Getty’s motion references.
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Q: What influenced your chosen technical approach, and how did it go beyond past methods? A: To maximize visual fidelity while minimizing file size, Final Form developed a custom image processing toolchain to process Getty’s 3D renders and videos into image sequences optimized to achieve fast initial loading times and high performance, even on limited bandwidth. Static image sequences allowed for a smooth, high-performing experience and greater flexibility while iterating. Crossfades, for example, could now be achieved with code.

When did you experience a breakthrough or an "a-ha" moment during this project?

Early on, Final Form was impressed by AVIF, a new optimized image file format that had just been released and was notably being put to use by Netflix. Compressing image sequences with AVIF routinely gave Final Form a 2:1 savings in file size, and in some cases as much as 15:1, while achieving the same fidelity as JPG. After seeing these results, Final Form targeted AVIF as their top preference for serving images to visitors.

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Q: What web technologies, tools, and resources did you use to develop this? A: Final Form built the site with React because its flexibility and component-based approach allowed them to create and edit a timeline of events that could be overlaid on a typical web scrolling experience. They supplemented this with GSAP, a JS animation library that offers robust timeline and animation features while remaining extremely small and fast. The Squoosh API allowed them to batch process Getty’s assets into image sequences.
Q: How did you balance your own creative ideas and technical capabilities with a fair representation of the client’s brand? A: The pillars of this project are fidelity, scholarship and delight. To ensure this balance, Getty assembled a cross-functional project team spanning technologists, academics and creatives. Curatorial highlights informed object selection and camera paths, while academic prose became conversational narrative. Final Form expertly took on Getty’s brief to preserve fidelity while crafting a delightful user experience.
Q: How did the final product meet or exceed your expectations? A: What was initially intended to be a pilot project has been enormously successful. Since launch, Getty’s expanded the website into five additional languages, and is enhancing its immersive storytelling capability to develop more ways to meaningfully share art online.
Q: Why is this an exciting time to create new digital experiences? How does your team fit into this? A: The impetus for the project comes as Getty seeks to reimagine how its art collections, archives and work might be experienced online. Working with outside creative and technology studios enables Getty to amplify the impact of its offering, and explore new possibilities in the digital sphere.

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