The Burlington Magazine

The Burlington Magazine was founded in March 1903, making it the world's longest running art magazine. Keepthinking has worked with them for many years, revisiting the website with them on several occasions. In 2003, the Burlington had their 100 year history scanned on JSTOR, and Keepthinking created a bespoke version of Qi to help them index. The print magazine was rebranded in 2018, and to coincide the website was redesigned; to show off the indexed content even better and to add some exciting new features (such as a calendar of events, curated free content, and increased integration with the shop). The aim was to combine the look and feel of a paper magazine with their hundred year plus heritage, and the digital experience.

The display of the homepage has been revisited to make it more striking. A display size ‘front cover’ greets the viewer when they first land on the screen, filling the screen with a home feature. The colour can be changed by the Burlington team, depending on the colour of the front cover of the most recent issue; enhancing the connectivity between the physical print magazine and the online offering. Scrolling down shows highlighted events, key link banners, as well as the most recent three issues of the magazine itself. The menu itself is hidden, and opens full screen when selected.
Every single issue of the magazine that has been published since 1903 is represented on the website. Each issue links to its single issue page and content, as well as the shop so that they can purchase any issue they are interested in.
A single issue shows all the content within it. Non subscribers may then purchase entire issues (either in print or PDF), or the individual article; and the online content is entirely open to subscribers.
A new feature for the website update is a bespoke section to contain the free content. This collates all the free reviews, free editorials and acquisition supplements from the past five calendar years into one place, for easy access and referral by visitors. A preview image from the review, as well as a related download provide the viewer with more options.
The What’s On page was an important part of the website prior to this redesign. It was revisited and enhanced, making it more visual, easier to browse and more intuitive to search and contribute. Important art events from all over the world are listed, with a highlight group of six at the top (selected by the Burlington team). Visitors to this page can filter and search the events, and go directly to event websites. The events listings also clearly show the user which are closing soon, which are open, and which are upcoming. There is also a form at the bottom of the page, so that institutions and organisations can submit their events to the Burlington team for inclusion in this listing. The Burlington team review each submission in Qi, and publish them on the website if approved.
The listings pages for jobs and opportunities, as well as the academic noticeboard, have been updated with the new design. At the bottom of the page there is also a submission form, so that users and interested groups can submit announcements to the Burlington team for publishing on the site.
The index presentation has been updated to ease the searching capability. Users are able to start with the simplest of searches (of everything from everywhere), and can progressively increase the complexity of their query by adding new fields or refining their search. The Getty ULAN and AAT vocabularies increase the search power even more.
Part of the Burlington Magazine's aim is to preserve the historical knowledge for future generations. They do this not only through membership, but through supporters and benefactors. A cleaned up, clearly organised set of pages about their support structure helps them to deliver this; as well as inform their visitors.