In 2017, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum decided it was time to find a new digital layout tool. The Museum had used the same custom tool for eight years. This tool was simple to navigate and accurately mapped out the building’s peculiar architectural features, like curved and tilted walls. This custom tool, however, had not aged gracefully. It was time consuming and difficult to import images, the system grew slow from housing too much data, and it crashed if an image was placed in the wrong spot. Additionally, annual licensing was costly and the company was phasing out customer support. The curatorial team knew it was time to make the switch. After some online research, testing trials, interviewing of other users, and many back and forth email questions, the Georgia O’Keeffe decided to go with Ortelia Curator.

Ortelia Curator is easy to use. It’s clearly laid out and intuitive so we don’t have to work in it all the time to remember how to use it. The amount of power in this tool is astounding. We never imagined being able to check how the winter sun would expose and affect sensitive works in our sunnier galleries. Nor did we expect to be able to test how sound from our video room would travel through to the other galleries. It’s truly amazing! Moreover, the customer support that comes with Ortelia Curator really sets it apart. Despite the 16 hour time difference, Lazaros or Darren respond to emails within 24 hours – and we send a lot of emails!

For a little extra, the Ortelia team custom-built the O’Keeffe Museum galleries, casework, benches, and donor boards, saving us time, energy, and money. We sent ~600 photographs of our 5,000 square feet of exhibition space along with many measurements. The communication was frequent to ensure that measurements were accurate. Ortelia even added the fire alarms so we are mindful of where large paintings are placed! The Ortelia team worked quickly and diligently and had the gallery files to us within a few weeks – it probably would have happened faster if the O’Keeffe team had not been traveling during some of the designing. When we received the files, we identified a few key changes, like how the sun filters through the skylights, and Ortelia updated them right away. The file looks exactly like the galleries at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.

Any and all critiques we have had about the system, Ortelia has fixed rapidly. We found that the number of lights we were placing in the galleries slowed the system down, so Ortelia added a performance option to toggle how many lights surrounding the camera view turn on. We wished we could navigate more quickly through the galleries, so they added a rapid point and jump option. We love that Ortelia is working with Vernon CMS to build a quick import tool. The current import tool from CVS file is plenty quick, as well.

Ortelia Curator is a beast of a program, which means that it can slow down the program and your computer. We recommend using this on newer computer for the best performance; however, we are frequent in our feedback and Ortelia is fine tuning this. We am confident this will be improved over the next few updates.

The Ortelia team encourages and welcomes feedback that improves their software. Even more, the customer support has not dwindled since our gallery files were designed and completed. We love that we can email our questions and feedback and have a next day response. We are so pleased to work with such a wonderful, kind, and professional team. We highly recommend Ortelia Curator. Not only is the design beautiful, but the team is a delight to work with.