The official Mahatma Gandhi Archive and Reference Library
Backstory
In the early 2000s, an ambitious team created a massive archive of all things Mahatma. Around the year 2004, that team dispersed and the site was no longer maintained. Working with CipherSpace LLC, and programmer/engineer, Troy Payne we received permission from the foundation to redesign and resurrect the original site. Continued development on the site is pending our work to recover and salvage content from the original database.
Before
Ahead of its time in 2004, the site offered a lot of content at a glance. We wanted to calm it down with a simplified hierarchy and a consistent set of templates at the lower levels. Unfortunately, the effort has stalled but you can find an initial draft on this staging server: Mahatma-Archive
Notes to self
Putting all the info on the top isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it gives you a sense of the entirety and control of how you want to access the content. Had they worked a bit more on the typography and created a better visual hierarchy at this top level, it would have been a lot easier to process and use. My extreme cleanup could have been a reaction to the busyness. With better bandwidth now, I might return to the more info at the top approach.