Encyclopaedia Britannica: the reference giant’s first move online

The client

Encyclopaedia Britannica is one of the most established names in reference publishing. By the late 2000s its audience had moved decisively online, and the brand needed to make its first move onto the web without losing an ounce of the authority the name carries.

We worked with Britannica directly on the main Encyclopaedia Britannica UK website: the brand's first foray online, with our team leading design, development and the publishing platform behind it.

The challenge

A heritage reference brand going online for the first time walks a narrow path. The site had to feel as authoritative as the books on the shelf, welcome a broad public audience, and give the publishing team a practical way to keep a vast reference catalogue current.

What we did

We designed and built the main Encyclopaedia Britannica UK website on a content-managed platform: the look, the user experience and the publishing foundation behind the brand's first online presence.

Our approach

We designed for trust and clarity, pairing a clean, confident visual language with a content-managed platform so the publishing team could keep the catalogue up to date without the design quality ever slipping.

Outcome

We took one of the world's most trusted reference brands online for the first time in the UK, delivering a website that carried Britannica's authority onto the web and gave the team a platform they could run themselves.

Context & coverage

By 2008 Britannica's shift to digital was well under way. Britannica Online had existed as a subscription service since 1994, CD-ROM editions had run through the 1990s, and a mobile site arrived in 2008, with a community feedback system added to Britannica.com in the same era. The print edition was still profitable but increasingly sold to schools and libraries, and the company would drop print entirely in 2012. A first dedicated UK website fits exactly this period of a heritage reference brand reorganising around the web.

• Britannica in the digital era and Encyclopaedia Britannica (Wikipedia): Britannica Online (1994), 2008 mobile site, community feedback, and the 2012 end of print.