Strategy and website for renowned artist, Maha Malluh
Maha Malluh is among the most acclaimed contemporary Saudi artists practicing today and creates art that pushes boundaries. In line with her bold and stripped-back aesthetic, she wanted a website that reflected what her art stands for. Like all great artists, she is as clear about what she doesn’t want as she is about what she wants.
We had a brief that clearly stated that the design of the website shouldn’t be dramatic and superimpose on the works. She wanted a website where her artwork was allowed room and space to speak for itself.
We had a brief that clearly stated that the design of the website shouldn’t be dramatic and superimpose on the works. She wanted a website where her artwork was allowed room and space to speak for itself.
Our Approach
Visual range
To give an idea of the range of her aesthetic, we curated an experience spanning three critical points in the first encounter
Material
Maha shared an image of Mount Shamalat, a historical site of inspiration. With its otherworldly, moonscape feel, it was a perfect point of entry into the site.
Stature and scale
An exhibition shot on the Homepage to transition from texture to scale. The sheer size of the work with a visitor dwarfed in comparison invites awe as well as engagement.
Grain
What do you get when you dissect the grain? Up close and personal with the artworks themselves.
Design for pages
Main and individual Artworks pages
For the main and individual Artworks pages, and the Projects page, we chose a neat, gallery-style display.
About and Exhibitions
For About and Exhibitions, we kept a clean, text-only display.
Publications
For Publications, a simple gallery-style display to highlight the covers of books her work has been featured in
Press
For Press, instead of the standard thumbnail and hyperlinks, we opted for a display in PDF-reader to show the complete articles in the original instance of their coverage
Storytelling
We showcased a select range from Maha’s vast repertoire of work with running descriptions to highlight key themes.
Supporting resource
Given the volume and growth of Maha’s work, frequent updates will be needed to the website. For this, we created a resource so someone from her office could do it on their own. The handover deck is designed as an ecosystem of support, including an editorial style guide and a library of demo videos for common tasks.
