LET’S PUT SEQUEIRA IN THE RIGHT PLACE

The Portuguese National Museu of Ancient Art (MNAA) needed 600 thousand euros to recover one of the most important portuguese paintings in History – Domingos António de Sequeira’s Adoration of the Magi. The painting had been in the hands of a private collector, but its historical significance meant it was necessary to return it to its rightful owners: the Portuguese people.

Creative agency Fuel came up with the idea of a crowdfunding campaign called Let’s put Sequeira in the right place (“Vamos por o Sequeira no lugar certo”) and asked us to provide a creative solution to an otherwise linear (and boring) crowdfunding platform.

But the challenge lied elsewhere: how to visually identify each donation and keep the platform stable enough to endure what could turn out to be over ten million donations?

We created a website that divided the painting’s canvas into an order-by-pixel system, allowing each crowdfunder to specifically select and purchase one or more pixels. This way, each person felt like it was actually entering ownership.

To do so, we created a 10.000.000 pixel map where each order was assigned a specific RGB color. As each pixel (or set of pixels) was bought, the color was automatically assigned to it, updating the overlaying canvas to reflect parts of the painting that were already paid for. On the other hand, color-coding each order allowed for the stability that was needed when dealing with millions of possible contributions.

At the end of the campaign, a new painting had been created on top of the Adoration of the Magi, with plenty of cool details submitted by each campaign donor.

With the help of 5430 investors and 173 entitites, the website helped generate €745.623, roughly 145.000 euros above the crowfunding's goal. The campaign also amassed huge media and press coverage.

• Laravel with MySQL
• Payment platform integration
• Canvas