The North East Mayoral Strategic Authority
- Digital Strategy and Consultancy
- Web Design and Development
Building a platform for The Great North Partnership
- A dynamic, content-driven website that balances investment promotion with a celebration of the region’s culture and spirit.
- Delivered within a tight deadline, through rapid collaboration with the client and other providers on content, structure, and design.
- A content-manageable web platform and design system, with room for the site to evolve alongside the partnership.
The Great North Partnership celebrates the North of England as a thriving hub of innovation, culture, and economic opportunity. Launched in 2025, the partnership works to attract investment, foster regional collaboration, and showcase the unique strengths of the area. The team behind the Great North sought a new website to support its launch event and beyond.
Originally, the brief was straightforward - create a simple, user-friendly site that would host important documents like an investment prospectus, culture report, and other key content for download. However, the project grew in scope as the team and Enigma Interactive worked together to expand the platform's vision and capabilities. This new website needed to serve as a central hub for the Great North Partnership, offering a blend of content that highlighted the region’s strengths and made the case for investment.
With a turnaround time of just three weeks, the team was tasked with launching the site in time for a high-profile event with regional mayors and stakeholders. This created pressure to develop a site quickly, yet one that would look polished and professional enough to align with the regional pride and ambitious future of the North.From the start the site needed to be built to adapt to the future needs of the partnership, allowing for the easy addition of content as the initiative expanded. This required a flexible design structure that could evolve with the content and objectives of the partnership.
What we did
Collaborative Design Process
Working closely with the The Great North Partnership’s core stakeholders, Enigma led on the content creation and structure design, offering a flexible, modular home page layout. This ensured that the site could accommodate changing content, while still delivering a clean and professional visual experience. Through daily check-ins with key stakeholders, Enigma gathered feedback and adjusted the site accordingly, staying responsive to their evolving needs.
Strategic Content Strategy
The content strategy focused on high-level overviews that would appeal to both potential investors and individuals interested in regional collaboration. The content was developed to strike the right balance between celebrating the North’s strengths and offering practical information about the partnership and the benefits it will deliver for the region.
Image and Video-Driven Design
Given the nature of the project, the website needed to be not just functional but inspiring. The use of bold, high-quality images of the North, from dramatic landscapes to iconic landmarks, was central to the design. The Enigma team worked with the design partners to ensure that these visual elements were woven into every page, creating a sense of pride and excitement about the region.
User-centered experience
The website's structure was created to be intuitive and straightforward, guiding visitors quickly to the specific information most relevant to them. The Enigma development team designed an interface that allowed for easy navigation, ensuring that even visitors unfamiliar with the new Partnership could easily access key documents, learn about the North’s strengths, and engage with the site’s content.
Creating Consistency with a Branded Digital System
With multiple stakeholders and content managers involved in maintaining the site, ensuring consistency and collaboration was key to the project’s success.
To address this, we developed a branded digital design system that empowers content managers to create new materials while ensuring alignment with the Great North Partnership’s visual identity and accessibility standards. This system is deployed across the website, ensuring that every update is cohesive, easy to navigate, and in line with the organisation’s goals of showcasing the region’s strengths and opportunities.
Screens images
Building a Flexible Foundation for Future Growth
As Great North Partnership was a brand new initiative, many aspects of its digital presence were still taking shape during the site build.. This presented unique challenges in anticipating what content and features would be needed in the long run.
We approached the build with scalability in mind, creating a robust foundation that allowed for future growth. The site’s content management system (CMS) was designed to make it easy to update content, while the platform offers flexibility to incorporate new features as the partnership’s needs evolve. This ensures the website can adapt to changing requirements and continue to support the region’s investment and collaboration efforts over time.
What they say
"The team at Enigma Interactive nailed the brief in an impossible timeframe - massive kudos to you all!"
Daniel Wright, Great North Partnership
Results
The new website delivers significant impact, including:
Visit the live site
Despite the rapid timeline, the final product exceeded expectations, delivering a visually-engaging, flexible platform that highlights the region’s strengths and potential – in time for the partnership’s high-profile launch event.
Looking forward, the Great North Partnership has a solid foundation for continued growth and outreach. The website has become an important tool in attracting investment, celebrating the North’s vibrant culture, and fostering new collaborations across the region.
Enigma Interactive’s thoughtful design and technical expertise helped to make this vision a reality, delivering a website that not only meets the immediate needs of the Partnership but also offers the flexibility to evolve with its future ambitions.
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