The client
The Eden Project is a global charity on a mission to inspire people’s relationship with the natural world and accelerate environmental regeneration. What began as a pioneering visitor destination in Cornwall has evolved into a multifaceted organisation that operates across several interconnected channels: physical sites in the UK (with exciting expansions planned for Morecambe and Dundee), land regeneration initiatives across Costa Rica, China, and Australia, education programmes for schools and adults, community initiatives through Eden Project Communities, and strategic partnerships with major brands including Volvo.
The challenge
The Eden Project is best known for its visitor destination, but a large part of its work – education, charitable regeneration projects, community programmes, and brand partnerships – sits outside that. We were brought in to help raise awareness of these wider initiatives, encourage membership sign ups to support this work and also reflect the new brand identity.
The existing website carried a huge volume of incredible content so we were challenged to be clever with a reskin-style project whilst focusing on uplifting some key conversion and discovery journeys across the site which included the booking journey and membership sign ups. Any redesign also had to work within firm constraints: retaining the existing CMS, integrating with a complex external ticket booking platform, and meeting a high accessibility bar (AA, with an ambition for AAA).
What we did
We took Eden Project’s new brand identity and translated it into a digital experience, aligning the site with the organisation’s business goals: communicating their wide-spread charitable work, encouraging membership sign-ups, and encouraging engagement with its charitable and educational work, alongside ticket sales.
The work was creative and UI-led, using Eden’s rich imagery and videography as the foundation for the new design, while carefully balancing that creative ambition against strict accessibility requirements. Colour choices in particular had to work hard to satisfy both. We redesigned the booking journey to work within the constraints of Eden’s existing external ticketing platform, improving the experience and ease of conversion. Throughout, the focus was on turning a content-heavy, but hard to navigate site into a site that actually does the job of surfacing Eden’s full range of amazing work – destinations, education, regeneration and partnerships alike. What was a confusing homepage became an inspirational doorway to the delights of the Eden Project worldwide.
We worked closely alongside Eden’s development agency throughout delivery, and maintained a close, low-friction, proactive working relationship with the client team. Shared B Corp status and closely aligned organisational values underpinned the relationship throughout.
“What stood out most was the relationship. Hallam were smooth to work with, deadlines were met, and they worked closely with our development agency to keep everything on track. We’re really happy with how the launch has gone. It never felt like just an agency relationship, it felt like Hallam genuinely cared about our business and understood our ethos. Being able to work with a fellow B Corp made a real difference to us. We’d love to explore further work together, particularly around CRO and taking a more iterative approach to the website going forward.”
Claire Crook, Head of Marketing and Communications at Eden Project
Be chosen before the search begins
Stop playing it safe and start working with us to create marketing that earns attention, builds trust and puts your brand ahead of the competition before buyers even start looking. To escape the ordinary and become truly unforgettable, all you have to do is get in touch.