National Gallery moves collection onto the Web

Britain’s leading art gallery, the National Gallery in London, is launching a promotional campaign for its Website, built by Web design agency Lateral.

The year-old agency, which counts The Body Shop, Carlton Communications, Levi-Strauss, Unilever and Fabergé among its clients, was selected from a final shortlist of three, which also included AMX Digital and Nexus Multimedia.

Julian Blom, ex-head of Carlton TV’s Website operations and now head of multimedia at the gallery, says that Mousepower and ADL opted not to pitch following circulation of the gallery’s tender because of concerns over their existing workload.

The site launch (www.national gallery.org.uk) is the latest in a series aimed at promoting Britain’s leading galleries and museums online.

“We have 5 million visitors a year and we are operating near capacity, so the Website is designed to increase the public’s understanding of our collection rather than simply promote the volume of visitors,” says Blom.