When the Best Design Doesn’t Announce Itself

If you’re part of Baltimore’s arts scene, you know BmoreArt. And if you’re paying attention to contemporary art more broadly, there’s a good chance you’ve come across their work, too. Long before they became a client, BmoreArt was where we went to understand what was happening in the city—who was making art, what events were worth attending, and how the creative community was thinking about the present moment. So, when they came to us about redesigning their website, it felt less like a new engagement and more like a chance to support a publication we already respected and relied on.

The brief was refreshingly clear: make the site “just work” for readers, contributors, and the team running it every day. This wasn’t about creating a show-stopping look. In fact, it was the opposite. We needed to find a way to spotlight the real show-stoppers: the writing, the artwork, and the people behind them.

BmoreArt’s brand already carried recognition and trust within the community, which meant that, from a visual standpoint, our role was simply to improve clarity. Clean, flexible layouts for readability and accessibility. A contemporary look and feel that respects BmoreArt’s established identity. Design that encouraged interaction, contribution, and exploration. The rebuild felt familiar, but more focused, intentional, and easier to move through. The articles and artwork were already doing the heavy lifting—all we had to do was let them shine.

While the visual design maintained continuity with the previous site, the biggest transformation happened under the hood. Our strategy and development teams collaborated to understand how people actually use BmoreArt and rethink the experience from the ground up. Great content doesn’t mean anything if you can’t find it, so the first order of business was reorganizing the sitemap and navigation for a more intuitive user journey. We also enhanced search functionality and database performance, and implemented custom solutions to improve content submission and the events calendar.

During this process, we prioritized the things that make a platform truly sustainable:

• Fully responsive across devices
• Compliance with WCAG 2.2 Level AA accessibility guidelines
• Best practices for metadata, tracking, and search indexing
• Improved taxonomy, filtering, and content organization
• Custom workflows for event and content contributions, including approval processes
• WordPress enhancements that improve both usability and performance

These updates mean BmoreArt can grow alongside the community they serve.

Today, the site offers clearer pathways for participation, whether that’s pitching an article, submitting an event, or simply spending time with the work. Content is easier to find, easier to share, and easier to contribute to. Because digital transformation doesn’t always come with a dramatic reveal. Sometimes, progress looks like fewer frustrations, faster load times, and systems that finally make sense. For BmoreArt, success meant building on what was already resonating with their audience and removing the barriers that got in the way. And for us, it reinforced the impact of smart strategy, intentional design, and close partnership working together to move a mission forward.