Modern website for a renowned club with over 100 years of history
From the very first conversation, it was apparent that translating what The Explorers Club does into the language of beautifully designed websites, will be like a daring expedition of its own. While working with a pre-defined branding, we set out to design a modern, captivating and accessible website full of features.
The Explorers Club was founded in 1904, and up to this day, it serves as a multidisciplinary society for countless scientists, explorers, and professionals, including the most familiar household names, such as Neil Armstrong or Sir Edmund Hillary. Working with them was an immense privilege, but also a fantastic creative opportunity.
Every expedition trip starts with the calendar, and it’s an immanent part of every explorer’s life. It’s no different for The Explorers Club, for whom we prepared a custom, beautifully minimalist calendar that outlines their scope of events and activities – from lectures and meetings to summits and trips.
Perhaps the most important of all subsections was the About page, which offers a peek into the Club’s rich 100+ year history, which saw its members travel to the most inaccessible places in the world, and venture as far as the Moon itself. The club’s long-standing notoriety is its pride and joy, and we made sure to put a lot of heart into highlighting it.
There’s no better way to capture an explorer’s attention than to present them with a map. This map of the world details the marvelous achievements of the Club’s members, including the expeditions to the wreck of Titanic, or diving to The Challenger Deep in the Mariana trench. The flags you can see are The Explorers Club’s official flag – the privilege to carry it being one of the biggest honors of any explorer.
On the mobile version of The Explorers Club page, it’s the photos that take over. Iconic pictures from the moon, taken by Buzz Aldrin, serve as a one-of-a-kind background for the site’s content. Design-wise, the ever-present white and beige backgrounds work well with a minimalist, text-based approach, where no icons or shapes distract the user from the stories and menus.
There’s no club without the members' area. Here, in this very functional space, the most important bits are naturally, the members-only features: easy access to benefits, fully customizable profiles, information on expeditions, as well as various lists, subscriptions, and bookmarks.
The website was created for maximized accessibility for people of all ages, as it was crucial also for the elderly members of The Explorer’s Club to be able to participate in the Club’s community.
We were working with already established colors, palettes, and typography. The biggest task was to make sure that we understood The Explorer’s Club’s values and transferred them well into functional designs that would work together smoothly. All that, so the Club’s activities and history could take the stage, and be at the center of the user’s attention.
As for typography, the Acumin sans-serif family created a wonderful duo with the staggeringly elegant Essones serif font.
Bearing the weight of hopeful expectations for a new website of such an esteemed partner as The Explorers Club was a tremendously difficult task, but much like the daring adventurers of yore, there’s no “impossible” in our vocabulary.
We provided The Explorers Club with a state-of-the-art website that details the Club’s history, highlights its members’ achievements, and marks the values that guide the Club and the people who identify with it. Above all, the website provides a professional, well-designed digital space for explorers, scientists, and educators from many scientific fields and professions.
The Explorers Club (New York City, USA)
