Studio-job.com: a never-ending scrolling art and design universe

The Dutch art and design collective Studio Job was founded in 1998 to create once-in-a-lifetime art and design objects, combining traditional and modern techniques. Studio Job’s founding members Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel are seen as one of the most influential design teams of the moment. They design both individual art objects as well as mass-produced design products. They have collaborated with major brands, including Swarovski, Land Rover, Alessi, and set up a joint-brand with Italian designers Seletti, called BLOW.

Studio Job asked Build in Amsterdam to develop a platform, representative of their iconic style, but giving a clear and accessible overview of everything they do, appealing to their wide audience: from art collectors to Instagram-fans.

Strategy

By working closely with Studio Job – organising several creative sessions as well as a detailed stock-taking exercise of their work, Build in Amsterdam created a striking e-commerce platform, never losing sight of the collective’s mission and their incredible wealth of work.

The agency succeeded to communicate all of this without visitors getting lost. They developed a never-ending scrolling web page through Studio Job’s universe of art and design. A web page where everyone can take all of this in, at their own pace.

Process

All content of the website flows from the scrolling home page. Everything has been built around this, with the menu acting as a giant filter to access anything that has been highlighted on the main page – a very smart search bar.

Every filter has been carefully chosen, designed and animated, in close collaboration with Studio Job. Again, to never lose sight of what Studio Job represents and creates: playful once-in-a-lifetime objects. Therefore, the menu/search filter has become more than just a search engine. Visitors are joining in Studio Job’s fun, their way of thinking. Searching for content on their website becomes like playing a game.

The agency’s biggest challenge was to translate this mood, this incredibly creative universe, into a functional online shop, without creating confusion. Their solution was to create a Mondrian-style grid, separating each piece of art, enabling each object to stand out.

Ensuring that the content would not slow down the functionality and, therefore, reduce the appeal of the site, Build in Amsterdam separated the front-end and content management system (CMS). By doing so, they could use React JavaScript, an innovative user interface-technology, for both the front-end of the website as well as on the server, whilst the client is using Wordpress and its e-commerce plugin, Woocommerce, both incredibly easy to use. Without doing this, the website would have been almost three times slower.

Outcome

Even though studio-job.com has only been launched recently, it has already won numerous awards, including an SOTD at Awwwards and the FWA. The site has also been nominated for the Awwwards’ E-commerce Site of the Year.

This case study was brought to you by the Dutch Digital Design collective.