Craft has been the principal promoter of hand-crafted practice for over 50 years, supporting the careers of thousands of makers and nurturing small creative businesses.
They connect makers with audiences, examine the boundaries of creative practices and build an ever-evolving, contemporary vision of craft in Australia.
In recent years, the organisation adapted its digital presence to support a more flexible, online-first model. This shift opened up new opportunities for growth, while also highlighting the need to evolve both the brand and website to better reflect Craft’s role and ambition today.
Defining the platform
The opportunity was to evolve Craft’s digital presence end to end, spanning strategy, experience design and the development of a new website, alongside the application of an updated brand identity.
With a timeline tied to the 2021 Craft Contemporary event series, the platform needed to be ready to support both the organisation and its community at scale.
The new site was designed to serve three key roles:
- A platform for members to showcase and sell their work, supporting their ongoing practice
- An online retail environment for audiences to discover and purchase handcrafted goods
- A destination for events and cultural programming, engaging both local and interstate visitors
Strategy
The process began with a strategy workshop, designed to align on objectives, priorities and the broader vision for the platform. This included a detailed review of the brief, alongside exploration of key risks and opportunities.
Personas were developed to represent Craft’s core audiences, including makers, educators, retail customers and commercial partners. This ensured the needs of each group were clearly understood and considered throughout the experience.
Working collaboratively, a new information architecture was defined to simplify navigation and content. The result is a structure grounded in user intent, making it easier for different audiences to find what they need and engage with the platform.
Balance depth and accessibility
Balance was central to the success of the platform. The experience needed to honour the expectations of highly engaged makers seeking a more intimate space for their work, while remaining accessible to broader, more casual audiences.
It also required reconciling the needs of emerging makers and established craftspeople, ensuring the platform could support a wide range of skill levels and practices.
At the same time, the ambition for a rich, dynamic experience had to be matched with practical considerations. The solution needed to be manageable for a small internal team, avoiding unnecessary complexity while still delivering a high-quality, future-ready platform.
One thing was evident from day 1: Craft's extensive and exquisite library of visual content was destined to be the main event.
Experience Design
A multidisciplinary approach underpinned the design process, bringing together strategy, UX and UI, brand and digital thinking to shape a cohesive outcome.
For Craft, digital designers worked closely with the brand team, developing wireframes ahead of the final identity and progressively integrating elements as they evolved. This iterative approach allowed the experience to take shape in parallel with the brand, ensuring alignment without slowing momentum.
The design needed to support, not compete with, the richness of the imagery. A restrained visual approach was adopted, using space and a minimal palette to give content and photography the prominence they deserve.
The physical gallery space, with its white surfaces and restrained aesthetic, became a key point of inspiration. The intent was to carry that same sense of clarity and focus into the digital experience, allowing the work itself to remain the focal point.
Online store experience
The online store was restructured and refined to create a more cohesive connection with the broader website, ensuring a seamless brand experience throughout.
Navigation between content and commerce was simplified, making it easier for users to move between discovery and purchase.
Flexible components were also introduced, allowing curated collections and individual products to be surfaced within key pages such as workshops and events. This created clearer entry points into the store, supporting both engagement and conversion.
Development
A core objective was to return control to the Craft team, enabling them to manage, update and extend the site with confidence over time.
While the previous platform had been adapted effectively during a period of rapid change, it had become difficult to maintain. Content was spread across a large number of page types, with a structure that made navigation and updates increasingly complex.
The solution focused on simplifying the foundation. A clear site structure was established, supported by a flexible set of modular templates. This allows a wide range of page layouts to be created efficiently, without the need to design each one from scratch.
A headless architecture was implemented, separating content management from the front end to support performance, flexibility and future evolution. This also enables products and collections to be surfaced seamlessly within the broader experience.
Launch
The new Craft website marked a significant step forward for the organisation, bringing its digital experience in line with its ambition and the richness of its community.
Explore the website support the makers shaping contemporary craft in Australia.
“It’s been a pleasure working with the team on Craft’s new website. We were looking for a partner who would be creative, collaborative, and, importantly, energised by our organisation and what we do! From day one, the team proved to be brilliant collaborators with an eye for detail and the nuances of user experience. They took the time to understand the depth and richness inherent in contemporary craft practice and our organisation and programming, designing thoughtful UX and a clean and beautiful website. We are thrilled to celebrate this next chapter with a new platform that integrates our activities and provides support and opportunities to Australian makers and designers.”
