PMA · Nav redesign · 5 directions

Five ways the Portland Museum of Art's website navigation could read.

The current red-on-red mega menus are functional, but text-only and visually heavy. Each of these directions trades the wall of red for a different editorial register.

Click any card to open the live mockup. Each is a self-contained page with working dropdowns, real PMA navigation structure, featured-imagery slots in every menu, hours/admission micro-bar, and mobile-responsive behavior. Switch between mockups using the bottom-right pill on each page.

Original · current
Baseline — Current

Original PMA nav

Red mega panels · white text · Lato sans · text-only menus · no featured imagery · pill CTAs

Faithful reproduction of the current portlandmuseum.org navigation. Use as the baseline against which the five alternates are compared.

Open mockup
v1 · Diebenkorn
v1 — Editorial

Diebenkorn editorial

Cream paper · Libre Baskerville · ochre / oxblood / sage / cobalt · asymmetric corners · Calder mobile shapes · Matisse cutouts

Treats the nav as a piece of art. Asymmetric panel corners. Cream paper backdrop. Matisse-style cutout featured-image slots. Triple-stack offset color shadow.

Open mockup
v2 · Tate
v2 — Editorial

Tate editorial

Off-white panels · Source Serif · coral red accent · 40/60 image-link split · slim utility bar · slide-in mobile drawer

Tate.org.uk register. Cream panels with restrained coral red used only for active states and the Plan Your Visit CTA. Generous featured imagery on the left of every dropdown.

Open mockup
v3 · MoMA
v3 — Minimalist

MoMA minimalist

Aggressive white space · Inter · pure black + tiny red · full-width edge-to-edge drawers · 50/50 image-link split · black mobile overlay

MoMA.org register. Pure white edge-to-edge drawer panels. Massive feature images dominate. Plan Your Visit is a small underlined link, not a button — restraint over shouting.

Open mockup
v4 · Rijksmuseum
v4 — Classical

Rijksmuseum classic

Deep navy + warm cream · Lora serif + Lato sans · gold hairline rules · 40/60 image-link split · 300ms elegant fade

Rijksmuseum.nl register. Classical museum gravitas: navy, cream, and gold rules. Slow elegant fade animations. Single elegant featured image per dropdown. Refined outlined CTA.

Open mockup
v5 · Editorial
v5 — Newspaper

Editorial magazine

Newsprint cream + ochre · Playfair Display + Inter · hairline rules · 40/30/30 newspaper grid · pull-quotes in dropdowns · masthead nav

NYT Arts / Apollo / Frieze register. Each menu is a three-column newspaper page: featured story, link columns, and a pull-quote from a curator's note. Plan Your Visit is a hard-edge ochre rectangle, not a pill.

Open mockup