Black holes and revelations
We’re very lucky here at Mark Boulton Design to work on some incredible projects, but something about our latest project win had us repeatedly muttering “Holy S*&t” over and over again.
Maybe it’s because they invented the Internet. Maybe it’s because they’re working on solving some of the biggest questions on the creation of the universe. Maybe it’s because of Brian Cox.
Whatever. Working with CERN is a dream come true for any self respecting geek. See that picture up there? The one with Relly Annett-Baker gurning at an innocuous looking Next box. That there is the world’s first ever web server. Check out the cute sticker saying “don’t switch me off”. That was just one of the incredible things we saw on our recent tour of CERN to kick off our latest project.
Over the last decade CERN have been responsible for some of the most globally significant scientific breakthroughs of the modern era, from accidentally inventing the CAT scanner to attempting to recreate the big bang through a giant underground particle collider.
CERN have a unique story to tell and the website is one of the main outlets for that story. The scientific community, researchers, academics, students and the general public all have different relationships with CERN and in turn have different needs when it comes to consumption of the content that forms the fabric of CERN’s communication with the wider world.
Our team at Mark Boulton Design, along with Content Strategy help from the inimitable @rellyab are honoured to have the opportunity to work on the redesign of the CERN website and especially to work with the community at large within CERN to create a site that fits their needs, and also help others understand the incredible work they do.
We’re working on both the CERN public site along with the massive CERN intranet and helping them unify branding across the 15,000-ish internal websites that run under their domain. Currently in the research and content audit phase, we’re working towards incremental releases later this year and well into next. We’ll keep you posted on our progress as we go.