The four museums and galleries looked after and run by Bradford Metropolitan District Council are treasure troves of art, history and stories. They’re places to feel safe, welcomed and inspired. They’re places where you can explore historic buildings and beautiful gardens and parks.
That’s why it’s really important for us that as many people in Bradford know about them as possible!
This year, we’ve been doing a lot of listening to our audiences (you!) and thinking about how the four museums and galleries can do better at serving you. Here are some of the things we found out:
- People who come to our museums have a really good time.
- Some people know there’s a museum in their neighbourhood, but don’t know what’s inside, or if they’ll feel welcome.
- Some people know all about the museum that’s closest to where they live, but don’t know anything about the other sites.
- Some people don’t know that all of our grounds and buildings are absolutely free to enter, six days a week.
Looking at all of these together, we decided that we could be doing a much better job of showing the people of Bradford (and way beyond) what our museums and galleries are all about.
One of the ways we’re doing this is by making our website, signage and our advertising a lot easier to use and recognise. We’ve worked with the team at Out of Place (based in Bradford) to come up with really clear, consistent, and colourful identity that will help us to do this.
On the new website (same address as before), you should find it much easier to see the latest events and exhibitions at each of the sites, and we’re using colour coding across our marketing so that you can quickly recognise content from each site
(pink for Cartwright Hall Art Gallery; grey for Bradford Industrial Museum; light blue for Cliffe Castle Museum; yellow gold for Bolling Hall).
Alongside these new tools, we’re working hard to make our newsletter and social media channels more relevant to you. We’re also working to get our posters and leaflets out into the heart of our communities, rather than just expecting that people will find us!
And one last thing… our sites remain absolutely free to enter. That’s incredibly important to us, because we know there are all sorts of barriers to people coming to museums, and we don’t want cost to be one of them. We operate a ‘pay as you feel’ scheme for all four sites, which means that if you have a good experience, you can pay whatever you want. It’s totally up to you! Anything you contribute helps us to carry on operating the museums and creating great cultural experiences for the people of Bradford.
