For Fritz Bauer Institute, we developed an online version of an existing physical exhibition. With clear interaction principles, integrated media and several language versions, the extensively researched content is made accessible to a global target group.
For everyone, always, everywhere
An exhibition goes digital
The traveling exhibition “Fritz Bauer. District attorney. Prosecuting Nazi crimes” was developed by Fritz Bauer Institute and Jewish Museum Frankfurt in 2014 and toured twelve locations in Germany and Austria. In order to avoid the ravages of time and to make the exhibition accessible to even more people regardless of their location, we were commissioned to convert it into a digital format.
The exhibition covers Fritz Bauer’s life in 20 chapters, from his youth to his political beginnings, his exile during the National Socialist era, his return to Germany, his work as Attorney General and legal reforms through to the Nazi trials. Extensive material has been collected on all these chapters, including pictures and documents as well as audio and video recordings. This wealth of content, which was previously presented as a pysical exhibtion, had to be translated into a clear online format.
We adopted the linear narrative style of the exhibition in the digital version. Divided into 20 chapters, Fritz Bauer’s life can be explored chronologically. Alternatively, an overview page provides orientation so that chapters can be selected directly according to interest.
Additional chapters provide information on the history of the physical exhibition and educational offers.
The individual chapters can be navigated intuitively. The articles are divided into vertically arranged sections according to the scrollytelling principle. Texts appear in passages that can be quickly grasped, combined with the corresponding media.
The minimalist design focuses on the integrated photos, documents, audio and video sequences. Effects such as parallax when scrolling or subtle animations when fading in media bring the reading experience to life without distracting from the content.
Thanks to the intensive and productive collaboration with MESO, the concept of scrollytelling provided an appealing way of presenting Fritz Bauer’s eventful life and work in various media formats and making it accessible to a broad audience in Germany and around the world.
The exhibition is intended to reach as many people as possible, which is why the website is available in German and English as well as in Plain Language.
The Plain Language version was created in close cooperation with our project partners. Appropriate design criteria are taken into account here, such as the breaks after full sentences or the avoidance of text/image overlays. Additional structure is provided by typographic highlighting. Together with the simplified text, this enables us to achieve a high degree of accessibility.
The smartphone version dispenses with animations in favor of readability and arranges image and text elements vertically in a single-column grid. The scrollytelling principle is also used here.
The smartphone version dispenses with animations in favor of readability and arranges image and text elements vertically in a single-column grid. The scrollytelling principle is also used here.
Verwandte Projekte
Curious about our approach? Feel free to get in touch!
Mathias Wollin Partner +49 69 24 000 326 mathias.wollin@meso.design mathias.wollin@meso.design +49 69 24 000 326
MESO Digital Services GmbH
Gutleutstr. 96 . 60329 Frankfurt . Germany
Team
Alessia Corsini, Max Mittelstädt, Paula Müller, Anna Rack, Laura Schillke