World Chess Hall of Fame
TOKY’s from-scratch website for the World Chess Hall of Fame helped build excitement for the organization as it settled into its new home city … one that would, in a few years, be known as the ‘Chess Capital of the U.S.’
While the nation’s chess players were soon turning their eyes toward St. Louis, so was the online community. Worldchesshof.org was named a Webpick of the Week by CommArts, and it was honored as a Nominee in the international Webby Awards, considered the Oscars of web design.
As the World Chess Hall of Fame prepared to reintroduce itself to the world in fall 2011, the organization’s leaders turned to TOKY to develop a website worthy of its global aims and rich history.
After first developing an interim site that generated attention for the institution and anticipation for its opening, TOKY launched a full site that very soon gathered national, and even international, attention.
TOKY’s design is a clear nod to the chess-board grid, with a few related smaller touches (with a quick click up top, users can ‘switch sides’… and color schemes.) We built the site to run on Eero, TOKY’s own CMS, which provides a great deal of flexibility and future control for clients. A few highlights from the project:
- Robust calendar features (including tagging) that allow the Hall of Fame to easily promote its events
- Dead-simple video and audio embedding
- Tight social media integration, allowing users to share pages and RSVP for events on Facebook
- Large images for highlighting the remarkable objects on view in the Hall of Fame’s rotating exhibitions
- Smart exhibition archiving, a feature that will kick in as the Hall of Fame gets older
TOKY has also crafted print materials for the World Chess Hall of Fame, designing the exhibition booklets Bobby Fischer: Icon Among Icons, Photographs by Harry Benson CBE and Marcel Dzama: The End Game.