Unifying a National Cultural Institution Online

The Gallery’s previous digital ecosystem was fragmented, with multiple websites and applications running on legacy OpenText CMS. This limited discoverability, constrained digital marketing capabilities, and created operational inefficiencies. NGC’s leadership saw an opportunity to reimagine its digital presence not just as a website, but as a cultural platform that could improve digital marketing and outreach, drive more physical visits to the Gallery, provide greater public and scholarly access to its collection, and strengthen engagement with Canadians and international audiences alike.

What began as a consolidation project evolved into a digital transformation: the Gallery moved from a fragmented online presence to a unified cultural platform capable of supporting marketing, scholarship, and community engagement. Therefore guided the Gallery through a complete digital transformation, beginning with a discovery phase that involved auditing over 6,000 pages of legacy content and defining a strategy for consolidation. From there, the team crafted a content strategy and migration plan that would unify disparate web properties into a single, streamlined architecture. Drupal's data modeling capabilities were extended through deep integrations with the Gallery’s Piction DAM and the Mimsy XG Collection Management system. The solution was strengthened through rigorous performance and load testing, accessibility compliance across English and French, and detailed technical documentation and training that set internal teams up for success.