Showcasing The Guinness Partnership's 125-year history

A historic brand

The Guinness Partnership owns and manages nearly 60,000 homes across England, providing services for more than 120,000 customers and care services for more than 10,000 people.

As part of the celebrations for its 125th anniversary, the Guinness Partnership wanted an interactive, engaging way to tell the story of the organisation and its role in UK communities throughout its history. Over those 125 years, it had collected a large, rich archive of documents and photographs that it wanted to showcase on the new history website. Additionally, it would hold interviews and activities with members of its various communities, who were to be featured on the website.

We worked with the Guinness team to create a digital system that allowed them to create sections of historical content, as well as add new materials to those when they became available.

A timeline, map and gallery

We created further sections, such as a timeline of events in its history, an interactive map of historical and current housing developments, and a searchable gallery of all materials uploaded to the site. These were designed to give website visitors an informative and entertaining experience.

Our design and development approach centred around a modular, systematic design style that flexes to the needs of each chapter. We used a vibrant colour palette coupled with a typographic library that allow a wide range of content levels and hierarchy, so that we could pace the audience's reading experience.

“The Guinness Partnership had such a wealth of beautiful archive photography and intriguing stories that they required a custom, creative experience, produced within a manageable budget. With our experience using WordPress as a powerful platform, coupled with other technologies such as Mapbox, we created a unified, interactive user experience that makes the historical content and archive very accessible.” – Phil Reid, Founder, Studiomade

Exploring history with Mapbox

Using OpenSource technology Mapbox, we created a responsive and interactive mapping tool so that users can explore the breadth of housing that Guinness has been providing for the past 125 years. The map lists each location, with important contextual information, then links through to the appropriate featured chapters or gallery pages.

The outcome

This was a wonderful opportunity to work on a heritage project. We created a digital presence that celebrated a milestone in The Guinness Partnership’s history. Using WordPress as an OpenSource CMS, we created a modular editing experience that gives the company's editorial team the capability to curate content across the site whenever they need to.