Gold in this years Publishing Prize!

Our winning entry is:

The National Property Board of Sweden
Kulturvärden magazine – www.kulturvarden.se
Category: Online publications

Our other nominated entry is:

The National Property Board of Sweden
Public website – www.sfv.se
Category: Public sector websites

About our design of sfv.se

The National Property Board of Sweden has high demands with regard to visual design and, as a public agency, accessibility. It was important that all visitors felt welcome on their website and could make full use of the content.

The graphical profile of the National Property Board’s previous website has formed the basis for the new one. However, this is a profile that was developed at a time when online channels were secondary to the agency’s communication. It is most suited to print materials, brochures and various forms of signage.

Our work on the new website has followed the existing graphical guidelines while simultaneously challenging how a public agency presents themselves in an online space. We have therefore made necessary departures to fit the digital platform and take advantage of the possibilities that this platform affords. In this way, we have both reinforced the agency’s identity while softening it up.

We chose a nearly black background in part to highlight the content and images. The National Property Board has a large image bank and pictures are a vital part of its content. The background also meets demands for accessibility – and it is a style that is seen in other aspects of the agency’s work. It is a moderately refined design that uses just a few colours from the graphical palette, both to meet new accessibility requirements and to ensure that the content gets the space that it deserves.

We complemented the supporting photographic style with illustrations and icons that strengthen specific interactive content, for example, in functionality such as filtering and search.

About our design of the magazine Kulturvärden

The National Property Board’s magazine has previously been available only in print or as a PDF. To make the content more easily accessible, the starting idea was to build a dedicated website for the magazine.

The concept slowly developed into integrating the magazine into the structure of sfv.se, enabling a clearer connection between the magazine’s content and the work of the agency. The challenge was to preserve the magazine’s strong independent identity while simultaneously incorporating it into the framework of sfv.se. Giving the online magazine a lighter background made it possible to clearly differentiate it from the rest of sfv.se, creating a site within the site.

There is a big difference between a print publication and a web page, but our aim was that a visitor would experience the online magazine in the same way as when holding one in their hand. We accomplished this, for example, by using the same playful typography for different types of articles as in the printed publication. A story has one look, a chronicle another, an anecdote a third, etc. This meant that the magazine has different types of pages that strengthen the content.

About the National Property Board of Sweden

The National Property Board is a state agency with the mission to care for and create Sweden’s natural and cultural heritage. The agency currently manages around 2300 properties consisting of 3000 buildings and 6.5 million hectares of land – a seventh of Sweden’s total area.

The magazine Kulturvärden is a way that the National Property Board fulfils one of its most important responsibilities – to make the cultural properties it manages more accessible and alive for the population at large. The first edition was released in 1994, and four issues have been published annually every year since.