A flagship commission from Culture Online, the DCMS body set up to use digital technologies to widen access to arts and culture, the ICONS brief was to create 'an online collection of the country's iconic objects of cultural significance'. We went beyond this initial brief to create a large-scale online public engagement campaign. 

Starting from scratch, we set up an organisation to operate ICONS, created its identity and its online and offline branding, we recruited an editorial team to produce the content and a publicity team to get the message out.  Then we built the site, launched it and undertook a major marketing campaign. The site was centred around a diverse collection of England's most cherished cultural treasures, and the public were encouraged to vote, nominate and comment.

The nation's imagination was ignited and in the first four days the site delivered more than two million page impressions. The launch was covered in every national newspaper and the site was voted New Media Age's Site of the Week.  Visitor numbers exceeded the DCMS targets by over 100%.