The Henry Ford
Making History Online
What If an 80-year-old cultural institution could embrace digital to become a center for content innovation?
Today’s consumers expect to shape their own experience with brands – whenever and wherever they want. We needed to blend The Henry Ford’s physical and digital spaces to create a world-class experience—not inside the museum walls, but for website visitors exploring from afar.
A New Way to See Old Things
The Henry Ford’s collection of more than 56,000 digitized artifacts and stories is the heart and soul of the museum. We chose to represent this data in the form of artifact cards — portable and adaptable containers to showcase each and every artifact. We were able to mix and match the collection’s data and portable artifact cards to tell visitors various immersive stories of culture and innovation.
Discovering the Past
We designed and implemented robust search tools that simplify discovery of The Henry Ford’s more than 56,000 digital artifacts. In total, we launched with approximately 1.5 terabytes of archive-related images and documents. Approximately 16 million files in all. All searchable and many shareable.
Monetizing an Artifact
Creating new purchase-path opportunities and revenue streams allows The Henry Ford to fund future innovation. Visitors can now purchase tickets and memberships, make donations, and buy retail items (such as gifts from the museum shop or high-resolution images directly from The Henry Ford’s digital collection) with the click of a mouse or tap of a finger.
