«Charity & Not-for-Profit Case Studies

Hidden Art

Not-for-Profit organisation Mazorca Projects supports and promotes design talent, in the wider East London area and beyond. The organisation has been creating opportunities for designer-makers for a decade: improving access to information, enabling the exchange of ideas and expertise whilst offering a platform for designer-makers to exhibit and sell design to key markets.

The Requirement

Prior to moving to EasySite the hiddenart.com website had been designed with a bespoke content management system which allowed the basic adding of new content to the site. However as Hidden Art grew and developed, it was clear that their web technology was holding them back.

Although the bespoke CMS would allow content to be added there was no way to alter significantly the structure of the site, create new areas, add additional user-searchable databases, nor manage the many thousands of images in an organised manner.

In addition the new site would need to have full content moderation capabilities so that the individual designer-maker members of Hidden Art could update their own pages without creating additional work for the Mazorca Projects web team.

The Solution

Following a rigorous evaluation of the UK Content Management market Mazorca Projects chose EIBS's Content Management System - EasySite to underpin the new website and help drive the organisation forward.

Using EasySite, non-technical staff can add and maintain information on the Internet via a simple web-based interface.

The scalability of the solution enables the 300+ designer-maker members of Hidden Art to each maintain their own interactive page where they can upload and use images through EasySite's advanced Asset Manager and update their information.

Managing this information flow is a simple process for the Mazorca Projects team as EasySite has full content workflow capabilities, allowing them to check and approve any proposed changes to pages, images and page attachments.

The Result

Now that the Hidden Art website is managed with EasySite, Mazorca Projects are benefiting from:

Reduced site administration burden

Previously Mazorca Projects had relied on an external web company to carry out significant changes to the site’s structure. This was an expensive process and did not offer the flexibility required by Mazorca Projects as it was expanding its services. By using EasySite content can now more easily be created, moderated and archived. Newsletters can be automated and sent to subscribers. Non-technical staff can swiftly create new sections with EasySite automating the navigation structure, Mazorca Projects are now free to create as many user-searchable databases as they require through the use of EasySite's unique Directory Builder module.

Enriched site functionality

EasySite plugin modules add more functionality to the Hidden Art site, delivering an improved Classified Advertisements area, Discussion Forums, and an Events Calendar in which the public can submit events. In addition EasySite's in-built Search capabilities allow a much more refined site search ensuring visitors can quickly find the information they are looking for.

Hidden Art Community

Individual websites can be created and managed by each Hidden Art franchise from a single copy of the EasySite software. The first regional Hidden Art pilot franchise intends to launch its own site in 2005. Franchisees will each have their own Hidden Art website which they will be able to control and maintain themselves - all managed by a single copy of EasySite.

Increased value in joining Hidden Art

In the future when a designer-maker joins Hidden Art they will be given their own web page to update where they can upload new images of their latest works, as well as inform visitors of news and events featuring their work.

A website that is accessible to all

EIBS have led the field in delivering a Content Management System which creates websites that comply with the requirements of the Disabilities Discrimination Act and W3C guidelines. As part of this EasySite automatically creates print-friendly & text-only pages.

See for yourself, visit Hidden Art's website

Hidden Art - [1.21 MB] See how EasySite™ CMS has helped Hidden Art meet their content management requirements.