The Challenge
Gresham College, established in 1597, had a problem; demand for their free lectures had reached saturation point. There was no more space to seat students in their central London lecture hall, and their outdated website failed to help the team expand their audience and fulfill their purpose – to deliver free education on a wide range of topics to anyone with a passion for learning.
Increase venue capacity infinitely through digital
Provide a platform for thousands of videos, which were previously unavailable to the public
Deliver a scalable and easy to manage platform
The Solution
Gresham urgently needed an up-to-date user experience and device responsive website that allowed learning to be simple and intuitive across devices. The UX and design team completely redesigned user journeys, page hierarchy and signposting across the website, improving SEO and introducing new ways for audiences to search, curate, share and interact with the lecture content.
Gresham’s website traffic lacked returning visitors and had limited data needed for re-engaging with visitors. Overthrow Digital created student accounts were introduced; enabling visitors to bookmark content and define their preferences. This simple step enabled Gresham to entice visitors back with content that matched their interests.
To streamline workflow, a streamlined Content Management System (CMS) was built, that provided the team greater flexibility for publishing different types of content, simplified the process of linking related content, improved event ticketing, tied in automations and introduced bulk actions to save time during busy periods.
Gresham’s website traffic lacked returning visitors and had limited data needed for re-engaging with visitors. Overthrow Digital created student accounts were introduced; enabling visitors to bookmark content and define their preferences. This simple step enabled Gresham to entice visitors back with content that matched their interests.
To streamline workflow, a streamlined Content Management System (CMS) was built, that provided the team greater flexibility for publishing different types of content, simplified the process of linking related content, improved event ticketing, tied in automations and introduced bulk actions to save time during busy periods.
Updated User Experience
Improved Sign Posting
Device Responsive
User Accounts & Content Preferences
Streamlined Custom CMS
Automations
Event Ticketing
Improved Data
Modern User Interface
The Result
Overthrow Digital have now been working alongside Gresham for the last six years as their digital innovation partner. The website continues to succeed across all KPIs, with audience and engagement statistics impressively grown across the board (25% of visitors are frequently now returning users).
Data points across the website also provided fresh information on the subjects and themes users were searching - for the first time in 400 years Gresham can design a programme that responds to their audience needs and behaviours.
Data points across the website also provided fresh information on the subjects and themes users were searching - for the first time in 400 years Gresham can design a programme that responds to their audience needs and behaviours.
Increased New & Returning Users by 34.87%
Increased Time on-site 39.68% YoY
Bounce rate reduced by 3.33% YoY
Average content watch time increased by 124.20% from initial launch


When Overthrow first unicycled into Gresham College, we knew that this was the agency for us. From initial contact through to the final sign-off of the site, it has been a pleasure to work with their team. We have always been able to have the utmost confidence that Overthrow were on our side working for the best outcome for us and our new website.
Gresham College
Call us
+44 207 272 9729
Email us
ideas@overthrowdigital.com