In their own words: "The Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) network is an exciting new initiative that is open to anyone with an interest in nature. We aim to create and inspire a new generation of nature-lovers by getting people to explore, study, enjoy and protect their local environment."
This new site is aimed at everyone, and has been designed to help inspire and engage the public to enjoy nature.
Built in-house by NHM's web team, the site is the first stage in an ambitious programme to help us all enjoy and understand the natural world around us. Content-rich, with much more on the way, the site also integrates with the main NHM site when it can to provide new gateways to other NHM content.
Stephanie Fletcher, design director at Wilson Fletcher said: "This was a lovely project to work on with the NHM team. The idea is strong, there's lots of fascinating content and we hope the design approach will really help to encourage people to engage with the project. It's good now and will only get better over time."
We developed the visual language, designed the page templates and provided the front-end code to the NHM team. Response so far has been great and with more community features to be released soon, the site should go from strength to strength.