Emakina

World Press
Photo

Associations / Webby Winner

Emakina

Associations

Webby Winner

Testing, testing, testing… That’s the key to the creation of the digital storytelling platform. Test the creative ideas with actual users and test the websiteand the migration of content extensively in terms of performance. - Emakina Team

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Q: Can you briefly describe your project and the concept behind it?

A: Storytelling through high-performing content. The World Press Photo Foundation is a master in digital storytelling. The breathtaking photography combined with the incredible background stories need a digital space that does them justice. The project presented two unique and complex problems. The first challenge for Emakina was to migrate a high volume of data stretching from 1955 to today to the new platform. In the next step, Emakina needed to ensure that the quality of the visual content was at its highest, while also building a high-performance website that stays stable through peak moments. The goal: create a user-friendly website without compromising any of the storytelling aspects.

What breakthrough or “a-ha” moment did you experience when concepting or executing this project?

Emakina started the project with a one-week design sprint, which was an intensive week where by co-creation the foundation of the website was created and delivered in a first prototype. This was also directly tested to actual users. The main insight in this first step is to keep the focus at all times on the visual stories and its context. The power of these iconic photographs is the key strength of World Press Photo and its heritage. People love to continuously deep dive in this content, including the massive archives of 15,000+ photos.

Q: What web technologies, tools, or resources did you use to develop this?

A: Kentico CMS

Q: What influenced your chosen technical approach, and how did it go beyond past methods?

A: Emakina provided the technology that allows these visual stories to become accessible in a whole new way by replatforming The World Press Photo Foundation website to Kentico. Together with the client, Emakina created a website where visual content is key and the goal of digital storytelling could be preserved. In the two peak moments (the nominee announcement and winners of the digital storytelling contest) the website performed impeccably and handled the high volume of traffic. While the worldwide attention was generating massive traffic directly after the winner announcement on April 11th 2019, the platform was delivering to its promise: Storytelling by breathtaking visual storytelling.

Q: How did you balance your creative and technical capabilities with the client’s brand?

A: Testing, testing, testing… That’s the key to the creation of the digital storytelling platform. Test the creative ideas with actual users and test the websiteand the migration of content extensively in terms of performance. The website is made to strike the balance between high performance content and the technical limitations when 1,000s of visitors are visiting this website at the same time.

Q: How did the final product defy your expectations?

A: There were two main challenges for this project: 1. A completely new concept for visual storytelling on a new CMS with a to-be migrated media library of 15.000+ photos. 2. A platform that supports the peaks during the yearly nomination & award show, with limited time to launch this platform for the main yearly events. The website did perform well with hundreds of thousands of visitors during the Award night. Photographers entering the contest were also pleased with the concept in which their work is presented with the attention it deserves.

Q: Why is this an exciting time to create new digital experiences? How does your team fit into this?

A: Now more than ever, digital experiences allow people from literally the whole world to absorb the great work creative people are producing. Having a firm footprint in commerce environments and platforms, Emakina was more than happy to put this experience into place to allow associations like World Press Photo to fulfill their valuable mission: to support a visual storytelling platform: stories that matter to the world. Emakina is proud to support the World Press Photo Foundation as official supplier & partner.