LABoral, the best website in Asturias 2011
The Centre of Art and Industrial Creation also received the award for the best cultural website in the Principality in the XIII edition of the awards established by the newspaper El Comercio
LABoral's website was recognized with two prizes. Photo: Luis Sevilla
LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial has received the Award for the Best Website in Asturias 2011, bestowed by El Comercio in its thirteenth edition. The awards given by the digital edition of the oldest newspaper of the Asturian press also recognised LABoral’s site as the best cultural web in Asturias.
Both awards, which were collected by the General Manager of LABoral, Lucía García, represent a recognition of the online strategy put into operation this year by the Art Centre which had its turning point with the redesign of the site www.laboralcentrodearte.org in the last month of February. LABoral sees its website and presence in the social networks as elements of communication and as additional, far-reaching tools for spreading information on its activities in the different activity areas and engaging with different publics and geographically-dispersed audiences.
LABoral includes a broad range of information on its pages and goes beyond a concept still held by many institutions which see the web as brochureware (the word-for-word transfer of the brochure contents onto the web pages). LABoral goes even further than the detailed content that an exhibition catalogue may have and includes videos, images and fuller information all connected to each other. The web is additionally conceived as a platform for artistic experimentation and an element of communication and transcendental diffusion of information on the Centre’s activities in the different activity areas -Exhibition, Production, Education_Training and Public Programme. It is also intended by the Art Centre that the website will play a determining role in the education and spreading of new artistic forms and industrial creation.
This online strategy has been developed by the LABoral team in collaboration with INTK -‘It’s Not That Kind’-, a creative studio based in Utrecht in the Netherlands, which is specialised in the development of online strategies aimed primarily at the cultural and creative sector. In addition to its commercial activity, INTK explores the intersections between art, technology and society through research and the development of artistic projects. As its manager and in collaboration with the team at LABoral, Rui Guerra, who takes part in open code culture from a critical position on communities, has been involved.
THE OTHER AWARDS
Another seven websites produced in Asturias received their respective prizes, awarded last night by the jury following a shortlist of five finalists for each category. Grupo Procoin, commissioned with the refurbishment of El Molinón among other works, was recognised with the award for the best business website. Gijón City Council received the award for the best institutional web from the director of El Comercio, Íñigo Noriega. Jesús Rubio, Deputy Minister for Sectoral Policies of the Principality, handed over the award for the best online promotional website to Cheese from Asturias, an unusual overview of the cheese in the region in English and Spanish. Vintage & Chic, a decoration, photography and design site by Leticia Blanco, emerged as the best blog in 2011; Valgrande Pajares, of the ski resort, is the best sport website; and Taxi Oviedo, very famous in Twitter, was considered by the readers and the jury as the best micro-firm or self-employed website. Similarly the company for thermal installations with renewable energies Moris Arroes Renovables won the special prize by the readers’ vote.
The Awards for the Best Asturian Website are sponsored by the Government of the Principality of Asturias, BBVA, Correos and Feve. At the awards ceremony, Carlos Urioste, general manager of elcomercio.es and member of the jury, wished to point out the proliferation of web pages “and their quality which has made it very difficult this year to reach a decision. As always”.
