Openings and Closings: The past seven months

It’s been busy, busy, busy here at Christine Lefebvre Design since I last posted — seven months ago! — about the Baselitz and Lozano-Hemmer exhibitions at the Hirshhorn.

Around the same time, and since, we’ve seen a bunch of openings: Five Communities at the National Law Enforcement Museum; Digital Disruption and A Deadly Attack at the Newseum; Habitat for Smithsonian Gardens; Hoops at the National Building Museum; Wíwənikan…the beauty we carry at the Colby College Museum of Art; and Man Walks on the Moon for the Newseum, at Dulles and Reagan Airports.

A few are already nearing the ends of their runs! If you have a chance to visit any, I would love to hear from you about what you thought of them.

The Newseum will close its doors on December 31, 2019 (though the Freedom Forum and the Newseum’s collection will carry on). It’s your last chance to see Digital Disruption in the News History gallery, and the rest of the museum’s incredible exhibitions.

I worked with the Newseum on three “pop-up” exhibitions, on view concurrently at Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport. The first of these, Man Walks on the Moon, is closing this week.

Another pop-up at Dulles and Reagan airports will soon take its place — the exhibitions are currently being installed — followed by a third in the spring.

Also closing soon is Hoops: Community Portraits by Bill Bamberger at the National Building Museum. Hoops will close on December 1, 2019, after which the museum will close temporarily from December 2 until March 2020. The gist of a glowing review from a friend: “I thought this wouldn’t interest me because I could care less about basketball, however … this is a really great exhibit!” That sounds underhanded, but I assure you they really liked it.

When the Building Museum reopens, you can look forward to my next exhibition for them, Alan Karchmer: The Architects’ Photographer.

Wíwənikan…the beauty we carry at the Colby College Museum of Art will close on January 12, 2020. If you find yourself in the Waterville, Maine area please pay a visit.

And that takes us through the end of 2019! If you miss the exhibitions that are closing soon, Smithsonian Gardens’s Habitat will remain on view (all over the National Mall) through at least December 2020, and of course there are those three upcoming openings. Until our next check-in....

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken link has been replaced with archived URL, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 29 October 2019.

AIGA Design Week and Timber City at National Building Museum

DC Design Week events have wrapped. This was a good Design Week — there were many more events than in years past, with a range of design focuses — and I was able to make it to a number of them! An event of particular interest to exhibition designers was held on Wednesday, at the National Building Museum: Design Matters with Debbie Millman featuring Abbott Miller: Design for the Built Environment.

The conversation touched on exhibition design, architectural graphics, and performance design. And as a bonus, prior to the event start, the museum's newest temporary exhibition, Timber City, was open for us.

Timber City opened in September and is on view at NBM through May 2017. The two huge title signs in the museum atrium draw your eye up and point to the bay where the exhibition is located. Also impressive in its scale is the scaffolding holding up the signage.

The exhibition is not restricted to the interior gallery space. Lining the hall outside the gallery are large plinths, of staggered heights, that feature stories about buildings' timber technology. Within the window bays are views into the exhibition, and architectural models in cases. The text on the painted green walls appears to be cut vinyl.

Inside the gallery space, the exhibition is made up of large-scale, extra-thick, freestanding wood walls. (You can see the support structures below.) Graphics appear to be a mix of direct-print and cut vinyl. The large murals at either end of the gallery space are applied wallpapers.

Note for future exhibits: Laminated Strand Lumber does not take cut vinyl letters well. (above)

In the center of the gallery space are a trio of cheeky display case plinths, made of stacked wood circles. The wood walls are peppered with infographics, stylized illustrations, and green circles highlighting quick facts about timber.

Timber City was curated and designed by Boston-based ikd. And thanks to AIGA DC for putting on a great week of design events!

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 31 October 2016.

SEGD tour of National Museum of Health and Medicine

On Sunday I attended a tour of the very cool National Museum of Health and Medicine, now located in Silver Spring, Maryland. NMNH is a Department of Defense museum first established in 1862 as the Army Medical Museum, “a center for the collection of specimens for research in military medicine and surgery.”

The tour was organized by the Washington, DC chapter of SEGD (formerly the Society for Environmental Graphic Design, now the Society for Experiential Graphic Design) and led by members of the museum’s staff and the design team from Gallagher & Associates. (I used to be a designer at G&A.)

There was a crowd in attendance so we were split into two groups. My group was led by graphic designer Liza Rao (responsible for the museum’s fantastic colors and typography), and Andrea Schierkolk, NMHM’s public programs manager. It was a treat to hear reflections from both sides; what they love and what they love less; things that work great and things that didn't turn out as expected. It was also a treat to see some of my former colleagues.

The museum is divided into three major exhibits: Collection That Teaches (purple), Anatomy and Pathology (turquoise), and Advances in Military Medicine (brick red). Crisp white casework and glass shelves give the exhibit a “lab-like” look that I enjoyed, and the bold shots of color look great against the mostly tan, cream, and yellow objects on display — yes, most of those objects are corporeal remains. This museum is not for the sensitive of stomach.

The exhibits were designed precisely for the current objects on display, yet they are still changeable — graphics can be slid in and out as objects are rotated or stories are updated.

Thank you to our new DC SEGD chairs, Liza and Chris, for the great program — keep them coming, please!

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 16 March 2016.

Freedom Just Around the Corner opens at the National Postal Museum

The exhibition I designed for the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, Freedom Just Around the Corner: Black America From Civil War to Civil Rights, opened yesterday!

Last night was its reception, with all expected fanfare including ribbon cutting and speeches, cocktails and finger foods. It was all quite nice — I do love exhibit openings. Here are some photos of the reception; thank you to photographer Bruce Guthrie for sharing them.

Alongside the exhibition, I designed the catalogue, postcard takeaway, special postal cancel, and exterior banners. (Photos of the print design can be seen here.)

The women working the USPS table — who were selling commemorative stamps and giving commemorative cancels — heard that I was the designer and I ended up signing some books.

And, some photos of the exhibition. More photos can be seen, here.

Post updated in January 2021. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 13 February 2015. This updated post was combined with a similar post originally dated 19 February 2015.

Pacific Exchange, open at the National Postal Museum

Work shown was completed while I was a designer at Gallagher & Associates.

It’s open! Okay, old news. It opened well over a month ago, on March 6. I had also planned to post about the opening reception, but that was March 20, so — old news there as well. In any case, the reception was lovely, with Chinese food served and tinkling glassware and everyone dressed quite nicely.

Pacific Exchange: China & U.S. Mail is the second exhibit to be on view in the Postmasters Suite gallery at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. From the exhibit website: Using mail and stamps, Pacific Exchange brings a human scale to Chinese–U.S. relations in three areas: commerce, culture, and community. The exhibit focuses on the 1860s to the 1970s, a time of extraordinary change in China. It also explores Chinese immigration to the United States, now home to four million Chinese Americans. (Thank you to James O'Donnell of the Smithsonian for the above photo.)

Upfront: I am a bit of a stamp nerd. I have a small collection of Olympics stamps, mostly international, from the 1960s and 1970s. (You have to focus when collecting stamps!) So I really enjoyed working on an exhibit about philately.

This was my swan song at Gallagher & Associates. I handled the design myself, from designing the exhibit’s visual concept to laying out production files for all of the graphics. I also designed the exhibit plan and artifact case layouts. Even though this is a small exhibit space, it had more than 100 artifacts, so making [nearly] everything fit comfortably was a bit of a challenge!

The design drawing above is an example of how a case layout looked during design development, and below are those same cases, made real:

Graphics were digital output mounted on sign blank, trimmed to edges, with a matte overlaminate. The wall-mounted and freestanding graphics were backed with 1/2" MDF painted Benjamin Moore “Bonfire” to match the primary exhibit red (Pantone 1795). The freestanding graphics had duplicate panels on either side of the mdf — a panel sandwich which was held in place by adjustable metal sign bases. The Smithsonian Office of Exhibits Central printed and built the graphic components. Blair Fabrication built the case furniture.

Most of the exhibit text is in English and Chinese, a design challenge I enjoyed. In the artifact case below, some of the artifacts were loans that had to be displayed flat. The other half of the plinth has a 15° rise to create a comfortable reading angle.

I arrived at the color palette after some research into significant colors in Chinese culture. I used red and gold as the dominant exhibit colors, with a deeper maroon red for accent. I used a third red, one with pink undertones — red, is the color of prosperity and good fortune, among other meanings — for the Commerce section of the exhibit; yellow, the color of heroism, for the Community section; and blue-green (or qing), to give a feeling of Chinese history and tradition, for the Culture section. I also drew distinctive vector patterns for each section.

The element that most people extol is the group of banners in the entrance. There are three individual banners and they’re more than 20 feet tall! EPI Colorspace printed and installed them. (Install photos here.) They were printed on “Brilliant Banner” 12 mil. polyester banner fabric. The fabric has a very subtle canvas texture that wasn’t what I originally intended — I wanted a silken look for the banners — but the color saturation and printing quality was so good that I went with EPI’s recommendation.

I also designed a few of the related print graphics: the exhibit catalogue, a postcard, and the invitation to the opening reception.

The exhibit has been well-received overall and I’m thrilled with how everything turned out. If you’re in DC between now and January 4, 2015, please check it out!

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits and additional photos. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 26 April 2014.

The FDR Museum is open!

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum was rededicated on Sunday June 29 and is now open to the public. The New York Times published a flattering review and we are thrilled. Here we (the Gallagher team) are at the gala reception, with the museum’s chief curator:

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 3 July 2013.

BoNE Show 2011, the wrap-up

The AIGA BoNE Show — Best of New England [Design] — is a design competition for New England, hosted biennially by AIGA Boston. I was asked to direct the 2011 show, after doing a decent job of designing the exhibit for the 2009 show, and when I said “yes!” without even thinking about it, I found myself responsible for its call-for-entries, judging, meet-the-judges event, awards show, exhibition, website, catalogue ... every little thing involved in putting on a design competition. (It was also the very last thing I did before I left Boston for DC, back in June.)

First I had to create a theme. I worked with George Restrepo to brainstorm a half dozen promising directions. The eventual winner — “Wicked Problems/Wicked Solutions” — was born while myself, George, and a couple other AIGA volunteers on the BoNE committee were discussing the concept of wicked problems and how design is essential to problem solving. Keeping tongue in cheek, I also liked that if people didn’t exactly understand the deeper meaning of the theme, it could also be interpreted as simply “wicked” in the New England sense.

The call-for-entries (above), designed by Kristen Coogan, featured a playful Rube Goldberg-esque problem-solving machine. This visual identity was carried through the rest of the competition and awards show’s graphic pieces, including the website, designed by Justin Hattingh, with technical assistance from Jeremy Perkins.

Below: In keeping everything aligned to the theme, at the meet-the-judges event — held in Boston the evening before judging began — the three judges each gave a presentation related to “wicked problems.”

All event and exhibition photos by Ben Gebo Photography. More event photos, here.

When designing the exhibition, we continued to play with the problem solving theme. Katelyn Mayfield designed a component-based display system: individual displays could be arranged in any configuration to take advantage of our huge gallery space on Boston University’s campus. The displays could then be packed flat and shipped to other venues when the BoNE Show “went on the road” after its run in Boston.

Here is the exhibition, full of guests on the evening of the awards show:

Exhibit displays were located in the front third of the 808 Gallery. Each display was custom-designed for the design project it held and hand-built from corrugated plastic sheets and PVC pipes. Windows and shelves were built by cutting and folding the plastic sheets, by Katelyn and a crack team of volunteers, including BU’s student AIGA group.

WICKED PROBLEMS and WICKED SOLUTIONS were applied to the wall in giant red and cyan vinyl. Winners’ names were laser cut from thick illustration board and the edges of shelves were finished with cyan-colored tape.

Above, left: I commissioned furniture designer Seth Wiseman of ConForm Lab to design and build two sets of benches which could be moved into endless configurations — a human-sized three-dimensional tangram game. The benches were sold during the event auction and the money benefited AIGA Boston. Seth also designed and built the tangram stage, which is in a couple of photos below.

Above, right: For the media-based winning entries, we built a simple kiosk. Joe Morris designed the interface.

Below, left: Dan Watkins (aka Dan the Man Photo) manned the “photo booth.” He also shot all the photography for the show’s catalogue. Below, right: DJs Dan Riti & Kevin James in their sophomore BoNE Show appearance.

Above, left: The silent auction table. We also held a live auction for the big-ticket items. Jason Stevens and Kathleen Byrnes headed the sponsorship drive. Because the point of this entire production was to raise money for AIGA, we tried to get everything for free (or at least on the cheap), and were very thankful for all of our generous sponsors.

And then there was the gorgeous (award-winning, itself) awards show catalogue, designed by George Restrepo and printed and bound by ACME Bookbinding. The embossed covers came in both red and cyan. The keepsake entry ticket was designed by Ira Cummings and printed and foil stamped by EM Letterpress.

And … the awards show! AIGA Boston chapter president Matthew Bacon served as Master of Ceremonies. Trophies were bone-shaped and cast in aluminum (bronzed for the Judges’ Choice winners), with embossed winners’ names. Names were all punched by hand (by Bridget Sandison, who also — along with Juliana Press and Meghann Hickson — took care of receiving and sorting and tracking all the competition entries) using a vintage Dymo label maker. Same way the awards have been made since the BoNE Show’s inception in 1995.

Thank you to Tracy Swyst, AIGA Boston’s VP of operation, who has overseen many many many BoNE Shows, and to the rest of the AIGA Boston board: Heather, Jodi, Colleen, Brandon, Jillfrancis, Diane, Chiranit, Lee, Mat, Jason R, and Sarah, and to the boards from AIGA Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, and NH/VT, and everyone else who lent a hand in any way. It was a really great experience.

Post updated in January 2021 with text edits and minor photo edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 24 April 2012.

The News 05.01.11

A compilation of design-related web finds.

Creating Material Lab at MoMA | Design to Preserve by the Cooper-Hewitt | Coming soon to the Mall? National Women’s History Museum Makes Another Push Toward Existence and National Latino Museum Plan Faces Fight (hint: probably not) | “Jurassic Park meets Buckminster Fuller” — a zoo that imagines a reunited Pangea | MoMath, the National Museum of Mathematics in New York, is raising funds | Vertical Urban Factory at the Skyscraper Museum in New York (slide show here) | Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War at the Canadian Centre for Architecture | The World’s Largest Dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History looks amazing (slide show here; I love photo 3!) | La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Mexican American cultural center in LA, “screens in a public alley space that both bring the stories out of the museum and draw passersby into the experience.” More in this article from GOOD | The National Museum of American Jewish History opens in Philadelphia | Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center opens in Skokie (review and slide show) | The Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles (review and slide show) | The MBTA steps up its “See Something Say Something” campaign, and in Boston’s North Station:

AND an upcoming opening!

Conner Prairie Interactive History Park is opening a new exhibit, 1863 Civil War Journey: Raid on Indiana, in June. Part theater, part living history museum; the interactive experience is centered around a recreation of a Civil War-era town complete with homes, a general store, and a schoolhouse. As part of the Christopher Chadbourne & Associates team, I designed the graphics located in the schoolhouse, where the lessons of the park are pulled together.

I designed a tabletop graphic for a touch table that houses three monitors. It’s meant to appear as though it were strewn with historic maps and military tactical manuals. I also designed a flipbook that holds background information about the park’s characters, in the style of a scrapbook; and a large “chalkboard” wall graphic inspired by Civil War broadsides and illustrated with a map and hand lettering. These were fun graphics to design, geared toward families and school groups.

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 1 May 2011.

Say Something, the wrap-up

I was honored to be involved with the Say Something Poster Project* by lending my exhibit design services to the first ever Poster Show, a fundraiser for Boston-based nonprofit The Home for Little Wanderers.

This was a case of less being much more. Initially I started with grand ideas to incorporate elements from the website branding into the three-dimensional exhibit space, but gradually I whittled down the exhibition design to its essence, to give the 25 poster finalists all the attention (and to make the installation manageable).

Posters were hung using 1.25" bulldog clips held to the wall with L pins. Labels were laser prints mounted to black illustration board and attached to the wall top and bottom with L pins. (And because I’m quite particular, you bet all the white paper edges were hit with a deft stroke of gray marker.) The large script title (“the poster show”) was drawn by illustrator Chris Piascik. I put it on the wall in contour-cut vinyl.

Guests voted for their ten favorite posters from the 25 finalists on view at the event. I designed the voting sheet.

Below is Mat Budelman, with his poster Think Half Full, one of the winning entries. Kudos to the finalists and winners, the volunteers, and to organizer Jason Stevens. Ben Gebo shot these event photos, and was also, incidentally, the photographer for the event I organized for Friday, AIGA BoNE Show’s “Meet the Judges.”

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 4 March 2011.
*Archived website leads to the second Say Something Poster Show; the first is no longer available online.

Talking about the BoNE Show

February, keeping me busy.

This Friday February 4 I’ll be in Providence for the AIGA Rhode Island event 20|11 reflect | respond | resolve | DESIGN — at which local creatives speak their minds for 60 seconds each. I imagine that in those 60 seconds I will have time to stand up, introduce myself, thank the chapter for inviting me to participate and with what time is left, ask if there are any questions. Actually, I’m going to talk about the theme of this year’s AIGA Best of New England (BoNE) Show, “Wicked Problems. Wicked Solutions.” Friday also happens to be the BoNE Show regular deadline; so New England designers: enter your work now. (Or aim for the February 11 late deadline.) The competition accepts all visual design work — including environmental design.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 2 Feb 2011.

Build Boston 2011: My conference experience

Last month I attended a few workshops at the Build Boston conference. Presented by the Boston Society of Architects, Build Boston is primarily targeted to architects and those who work with architects; it is “the Northeast’s largest tradeshow and conference for the design and construction industry” so I was surprised and happy to find a few programs on this year’s schedule of interest to museum exhibit designers.

First, the tours. Options included a tour of Boston’s boutique hotels, tours of the MIT Media Lab, and a tour of the new Art of the Americas wing at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. A few of my coworkers got the behind-the-scenes sneak peak of the MFA (read Katelyn’s description); I instead attended a symposium called “Cultural Catalysts to Inclusive/ Socially Sustainable Design.” The MFA featured in my conference experience later when it was discussed at length during another symposium I attended, “Museums in the Digital Age.” I also stopped by the Build Boston PechaKucha, and attended the workshop, “Sustainability in Environmental Graphic Design.”

PechaKucha: PechaKucha Nights are events for designers to meet, network, and show their work. (Update: not just for designers anymore.) Presenters show 20 slides, for 20 seconds per slide. The slides automatically advance after 20 seconds, forcing presenters to stay on topic and talk fast. Highlights:

•Artforming, (link no longer available) with examples of their site-specific public art and architecture installations, which center around environment, emerging technologies, and the synthesis of art and science.

•Two Northeastern University students and their involvement in Freedom by Design. Freedom by Design, the AIAS’s (American Institute of Architecture Students) “community service program … uses the talents of architecture students to radically impact the lives of people in their community through modest design and construction solutions.”

•Saeed Arida and Saba Ghole, on the studio environment of NuVu (the Innovation School) in Kendall Square, Cambridge. NuVu is “a place of innovation where middle and high school students join together with experts from MIT and Harvard to create new views of the world.” It sounds like an incredible program.

Cultural Catalysts to Inclusive/Socially Sustainable Design: This symposium was sponsored by the Institute for Human Centered Design, an international education and design non-profit based in Boston that is “dedicated to enhancing the experience of people of all ages and abilities through excellence in design.”

•Dr. Shigeki Inoue from Hakuhodo Universal Design, a consulting and creative boutique in Tokyo that seeks to improve the lives and satisfaction of sei-katsu-sha (“living persons”) of differing needs and abilities. Dr. Inoue is researching “science in design”; specifically, creating a highly legible Japanese typeface. Dr. Inoue asked, “why do designers make designs that are difficult to read?” and spoke to how graphic design remains largely inaccessible for people who have low vision.

•Karin Bendixen is director of the consultancy Bexcom and founder and president of the Danish Design for All network. She writes about “Design for All” concepts, targeting architects, planners, designers, and politicians. She asked that we change our mindsets from designing for disabled individuals as a distinct segment of society to designing for society as though everyone has a disability — i.e. everything is accessible for everyone — and from “what design is” to “what design can do.” Bendixen encouraged us all to be better at promoting the messages of Universal Design: holistic design, sustainability, and design for all.

•Rachna Khare is Professor and Doctoral Research Coordinator at the School of Planning and Architecture in Bhopal, India. She lectures and writes about universal design in India. There are 70 million people with disabilities in India (5–6% of the population), and the majority live in rural areas. Most of the current accessibility efforts in India are “too Western” in their approach, according to Khare. Her goal is to make universal design an entrenched part of Indian culture.

•The new design director for the Visual Arts Division of the National Endowment for the Arts wrapped up the symposium. The NEA is an independent government agency and the largest national funder of the arts; it’s also a partner in Blue Star Museums, the program that offers free museum admission to military personnel and their families from Memorial Day through Labor Day. The agency is currently collecting datasets from all design disciplines, and is interested in strategic investment in design and connecting designers with businesses and federal organizations that are interested in design thinking. There are many funding opportunities, and grant money can be used to hire designers — design fees, preparing space for an exhibit, installation or de-installation of art, and community planning are eligible.

Museums in the Digital Age: Moderated by Aisha Densmore-Bey of the BSA’s Museum and Exhibit Design Committee, this symposium asks, “...even as daily life is reconfigured constantly by technology, museums retain their esteem as bastions of culture. In the face of an increasingly interactive world online, is a physical space still necessary to experience art?”

•Susan Leidy, Deputy Director of the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH, asked, “What are museums currently thinking about and doing with media? Where does media fit in? Does original artwork still matter?” According to her, media and technology should only be used to further museums’ missions and museums should take care to stay true to those missions, whatever they might be: education, conservation, collecting, or something else. Original artwork does still matter … and so too do historical documents, artifacts, live animals, sight, sound, smell, touch. More than anything else, visitors want authenticity in a museum experience. They go to see real physical objects. Take home message: compromise authenticity for digital media at our peril.

•Peter Kuttner, President of Cambridge Seven Associates in Cambridge, MA, drew connections between two different-seeming types of museum/themed experiences: the art museum and the zoo. Both are primarily about authenticity and seeing something in-person. The tendency in these types of environments is to separate the media from the art/animals so as not to detract from the art/animals. Kuttner gave a few case studies of projects by Cambridge Seven to illustrate media used thoughtfully in an exhibit. Media technology allows you to quickly respond to current events if there’s a reason to do so. It’s also possible to “hide” the technology by integrating it into the experience of the exhibit space (or, to put it another way: to allow technology to inform but not dominate a space). Technology can encourage group activity and indepth learning, but has to be taken to a level beyond sitting at a monitor.

•Ann Beha of Ann Beha Architects in Boston spoke at length about the Museum of Fine Arts’s new Art of the Americas wing. (A project, she noted, that she did not work on but admires.) One of the MFA’s media highlights is its new website, which features a homepage that continually updates and changes as it rotates through photos of its exhibitions, and introduces “Buzz,” their foray into social media. Buzz brings together the MFA’s Twitter, flickr, YouTube, and Facebook accounts and is an intentional attempt to engage in a dialogue with its visitors and gather real time feedback on people’s experiences at the museum. Beha mentioned that the MFA was the first museum to post its entire collection online, in 1995, and has in many ways been an internet leader in the museum industry. All technology within the MFA helps to support the museum’s missions of collecting, stewardship, scholarship, engagement, enlightenment. There are study stations incorporated into the wayfinding in the corridors; easy-to-use multimedia guides that provide options for self-directed learning; touch screen stations that teach and engage visitors on a deeper level than that provided by the exhibition labeling alone; touch tables. Everything is integrated into the environment of the museum in a seamless way with “intense design sensibilities.” The physical architecture of the museum building becomes a blank canvas for media, and an opportunity to create public spaces that are full of life and possibilities.

Sustainability in Environmental Graphic Design: Discussed in this workshop were strategies for EGD sustainability including material selection, resource and waste management, energy and lighting efficiency, air and water quality, public education, and costs. I’ve been working on a list of websites and blogs that focus on sustainability, and you can explore them in this website’s sidebar to the right. (links no longer available)

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 17 January 2011.

Build Boston 2011: Touring the MFA

GUEST POST

Writing and photography by Katelyn Mayfield, an exhibit designer at Christopher Chadbourne & Associates. She has a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. In her spare time, she makes handstitched books.

After a private tour of the Museum of Fine Art Boston’s new Art of the Americas wing, given by architect Adi Toledano of CBT Architects, I now feel certain that Boston has a world class museum. The tour was given prior to the wing’s grand opening as part of Build Boston. We got up close and personal with the details since almost no one was around, except security guards and last minute glass case cleaners.

My first response in the galleries was to the artifact display cases. These cases were undeniably eye-catching, like no other. The glass was crystal clear, completely devoid of prints of any kind. When standing on one side of a case, I could see perfectly through it and into cases beyond because of the impeccable clarity. The sleekness of the cases also succeeds in hiding complex mechanics, as described in this article. All 200 cases in the new wing were designed, manufactured, and assembled in Milan, Italy by Goppion Museum Workshop before they were shipped to Boston for installation. Goppion has also created display systems for the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and the Crown Jewels of England, among others, so high quality craftsmanship is a given. And once I got past the perfection of the cases, the artifacts inside were not so bad themselves!

Sir Norman Foster along with Foster + Partners was the Design Architect and creative masterminds of the new wing. Our guide, Adi, kept repeating, “Foster wanted ‘everything to line up’”, meaning everything had to be flush. Foster gets what Foster wants. He was knighted in 1990 and won the Pritzker Architecture Prize for his entire portfolio in 1999, the most prestigious international prize awarded in the field of architecture. He was also awarded the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 1994. I think he is worthy of dictating every detail, as he did in this project. No detail was overlooked and all components work harmoniously. It was the responsibility of CBT, the local architect of record, to design the actual details that accomplished this harmony. For me, highlights were the “landscape corridor,” the day-lighting strategies, and the details that made “everything line up.”

The landscape corridor is a thoughtful nod to the existing museum structure and the outdoors. Between the original building and the new building, a narrow 6' space is left full of vegetation. While in the main courtyard, which has two elevations of three-story-high glass walls, the corridors are visible on either side. The natural light, the view of the vegetation and the sky beyond, and the height of the ceiling makes this space feel like an actual outdoor courtyard. The landscape corridor is also visible when crossing over the enclosed bridges from the new wing to other wings. It really is a nice sight.

The main concept of the day-lighting strategy is based on indirect light. It’s seemingly simple; very successful. Because all four floors of the wing open onto small glass vestibules which open to the stairways, and then to the courtyard, all four floors have indirect natural light access. Sunlight is obviously harmful to artwork and artifacts, but otherwise a welcome source of light. The solution to safely utilizing this indirect light was to diffuse it through two layers of glass.

This idea that “everything must line up” is showcased in every aspect of the architecture; from the construction of the walls, to the lighting in the ceiling, to the emergency exit signs. The wall surface uses the skim coat plaster technique that is superior to average drywall. It is labor intensive — thick coats of plaster are applied to an expanded wire lath — however, it provides better durability and ease of replacing single spots of wall if necessary.

Even the smallest components, the exit signs, were meticulously executed. In the auditorium, which is covered in wood paneling, a sign protruding perpendicularly from the wall would not do at all. Instead, the letters E-X-I-T were cut into the wood and green light shines through from behind. Apparently this small project in itself was not easily accomplished. It took much compromise and discussion from the Boston Fire Department. The outcome is sleek and yes, “lined up.”

Then there is the door to the bathroom hallway. So well done! The door has no molding, no knob, no latch; it’s a push door, double swing, that extends all the way to the ceiling, with just a 1/4" gap between.

I also have to mention the graphics. The explanatory texts were short and sweet, subtle yet still noticeable. I appreciated the subdued graphics and simple 1" deep panels painted the same color as the wall. This created a different visual plane to draw your attention, but allowed the artwork and artifacts to take the lead. Within the cases, small numbers on tiny frosted pieces of glass show you which artifact matches up with which label below. In any case, go see the Boston MFA’s new wing. It is elegant, modern, and simply beautiful.

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 1 December 2010.

Old Faithful Visitor Center’s grand opening

I took a trip out West last week, with my colleagues from Christopher Chadbourne & Associates, for the grand opening of the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center in Yellowstone National Park. Exciting! Post soon!

I have a somewhat hefty backlog of content for the blog. Some of it dates to when we were wearing knit hats and snow boots. I hope to have it all up asap.

Update: I got most of them. Changing Earth | Electricity | State of Deception | Cars, Culture, and the City | America’s Mayor | Samurai in New York | New England Habitats | Mass MoCA | Old Faithful Visitor Center

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Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 29 August 2010.

2009 AIGA BoNE Show wins (another!) award

Exciting news: a project I worked on last year, the 2009 AIGA BoNE Show, has taken home another award!

As the exhibit designer, I worked with BoNE Show co-directors Jeff Stammen and Brandon Bird, to step up and shake up the biennial, Boston-based awards show/exhibition. It was a nearly year-long process to put it together and our goal throughout was to create something engaging and memorable. In the end, the feedback was glowing — everyone who went had the most fun at the show’s opening last June* — and we won a couple of design awards to boot.

In September, we received an AIGA (Re)designAward for Sustainable Design; the awards recognize social responsibility and environmental sustainability in design. We were one of 25 winners in 2009.

And last week at the 2010 SEGD Conference, we were honored with an SEGD Design Award, in the “Lot With a Little” category.

*Some blog post mentions: Common Content | Hart-Boillot | MIT Press | Pinkergreen | South of the Sahara

But — you ask — what exactly is this BoNE Show?

The BoNE (Best of New England) [Design] Show is a biennial competition, exhibition, and fundraiser to benefit AIGA’s Boston chapter. Our theme for 2009 was Community. While the primary purpose of the exhibition was to showcase the 49 winning design pieces, the planning team (myself included) also wanted the experience to engage, educate, and help designers to feel more connected to their design community. One aspect of that was re-branding the BoNE Show into B(oNE) — as in “be one” — with the tagline, “One Region. One community.”

Thirteen local designers, design firms, and artists were commissioned to build large dimensional letter sculptures that together spelled out AIGA B(oNE) SHOW. (top photo) This became a centerpiece of the exhibition, and the letters were auctioned off at the opening reception.

My goal was to create an exhibition that would celebrate the competition winners and also the New England design community as a whole. To push the Community theme, I created an infographic wall about the AIGA in New England, including chapter sizes, locations, and other basic information.

A second infographic wall — B(oNE) Show Deconstructed — provided a glimpse into the creation of the exhibition, including statistics about the designers who entered work in the competition and the designers who won recognition.

Another area of the exhibition gave visitors the opportunity to share their ideas of what it takes to “B” a great designer — by contributing to a wall of B (fill-in-the-blank) speech-bubble directives. Some were earnest; others humorous.

I sourced environment-friendly and local materials, with the help of my design team. Graphics were printed with UV-curing ink on recycled chlorine-free kraft paper, at a printer located five miles from the gallery — or they were drawn by hand. Discarded furniture taken off the street, piles of cardboard collected from area businesses, an old door and a roll of twine found in a garage: “trash” that we salvaged and put to good use. The designs integrated mechanical fasteners and non-toxic glues. And to describe the “greenness” of the project for visitors to the exhibit, we created the Green Lounge, which was painted entirely in green, even the furniture. We used Old Fashioned Milk Paint — it's earth- and people-friendly, and manufactured nearby in Groton, MA. The Green Lounge also featured a slide show of past award winners to pull together BoNE Shows past and present, and add another element of Community.

The biggest undertaking for the exhibition were the displays for the winning entries. We repurposed roughly 50 wooden shipping pallets collected from around the Boston area. These were deconstructed into planks, then planed and reconfigured into custom display fixtures — shelves, platforms, and frames — each designed to highlight the unique elements of the winning entry it held.

More photos of the exhibit here, and of the opening night here.

I’m going to take advantage of my blog/soapbox to also thank the many, many people who volunteered their time and helped put together the show: event photographer Christian Phillips; carpenter Mark Laning, Matt White of Dirk+Weiss (A/V), Melissa DePasquale (print design), Rochelle Ask, Colleen Baker, Rachel Boothby, Kimberly Cloutier, Luke Garro, Ben Gebo, Lee Gentry, Justin Hattingh, Andrea Kulish, Joe Liberty, Mike Mai, Cedric Mason, Julie Ogletree, Juliana Press, George Restrepo, Jason Rubin, Shaona Sen, Andrea Shorey, Drew Spieth, Sarah Tenney Stammen, Jason Stevens, Ken Takagi, Mende Williams, and Andrea Worthington. Thank you also to the AIGA Boston board — especially Suzanne McKenzie and Tracy Swyst — and the most excellent people at CCA, who were never-endingly supportive of Jeff and I as we in effect worked a second full-time job (they wrote this lovely news release about us) and our friends and families who had to deal with us in the duration. And here it is, our SEGD award:

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 17 June 2010.

Philagrafika

Philagrafika 2010 is a Philadelphia-wide festival and exhibition of contemporary printmaking. The festival is divided into three components: The Graphic Unconscious is the core exhibition that features the work of thirty-five artists, from eighteen countries, in five art museums and galleries; Out of Print is work created by five artists who were paired with historic Philadelphia institutions; and Independent Projects is a variety of exhibitions organized by other institutions throughout the city.

Additional programing — films and such — supplemented the exhibitions. I like that this festival is all over the city (it was obviously some undertaking), and I really like the title treatment (photo above) and festival map and guidebook by Philly-based Smyrski Creative. Quite nice.

I visited The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design, part of the Graphic Unconscious exhibition, and saw (and loved) Regina Silveira’s Mundus Admirabilis, an installation wherein a domestic setting is invaded by common pests to invoke biblical plagues and comment on the “plagues” of contemporary society. You can read an interview with Regina Silveira on the Philagrafika blog, here.

Lucky Philadelphians, able to take their time exploring the entire festival, at least for another two weeks (it ends April 11). I wasn’t able to spend nearly enough time with it.

Post updated in Jan 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 29 March 2010.

Picturing the Promise

The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise — a collaboration between the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of American History — is currently on view in the NMAAHC gallery within NMAH. You have about two months to catch it; it closes on February 28. Construction of the NMAAHC’s permanent home on the mall is scheduled to begin in 2012, and its opening is scheduled for 2015.

This exhibit was designed by Christopher Chadbourne & Associates. I assisted with the graphic design.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 3 January 2010.

The Silk Road, Tim Burton, and Bauhaus

I have no photos to share of the American Museum of Natural History‘s new exhibit Traveling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World — though you can see some here and in the New York Times review — so you’ll have to take my word for it that it is fantastic. The museum invited in the NY chapter of SEGD for an exhibit open house on Friday evening. (I am in the Boston chapter, but they let me crash the party.) It was a really nice experience — I’d like to give a big thank-you to the museum’s in-house design department, who were all super friendly and welcoming.

See it now through the end of August, or if you somehow are able to wait for it, the exhibit will eventually travel to other museums. Silk Road has everything that I’ve come to expect from AMNH: an interesting theme, beautiful prop work, fascinating artifact displays, and lovely, compelling graphics.

Saturday, I had a less-than-pleasant experience at the Tim Burton exhibit at the MoMA. (Exhibit timeline, above.) It wasn’t Tim Burton’s fault (I love his work), and not entirely the exhibit’s fault, but I do think it was a mistake for the museum to put this exhibit in the gallery they did. The larger gallery space on the sixth floor might have been better able to handle the number of people. Granted, it was a Saturday afternoon when I went, but people were packed cheek by jowl, making it impossible to move, and it was unbearably hot.

I had trouble figuring out the intended navigation of the space, which seemed to be trying for a chronological arrangement. The placement of the walls, however, created human gridlocks as people came around walls from different directions and refused to cede any space in front of any of the art. Photos of the exhibit can be seen at the exhibit link.

Then, I was on to the exhibit Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity. I loved the work on display, which included everything from furniture to tapestry to poster design, from the Avant-Garde art school, and I really liked the entrance graphics. This post from the MoMA blog talks about the graphic design department’s process of designing the exhibit as a fresh take on Bauhaus graphic sensibilities.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed or replaced. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 15 December 2009.

The digitally-printed looking glass

This past Wednesday I spent a couple of hours in the Build Boston exhibition hall, looking for exciting new materials. Build Boston is a convention and tradeshow for the design and construction industry. Last year, I went to the Greenbuild expo while it was in Boston — and there was a lot to see, and a lot to be inspired by, and a lot of neat samples with which to fill up my Greenbuild-branded reusable tote. I hoped to repeat that experience at Build Boston, but was mostly disappointed. Build Boston is more for those who are concerned with foundations and door jambs and other such stuff. Architects, namely; not exhibit designers.

BUT! I did find one product that I really like the look of: “Alice” direct-to-glass digital printing. Alice is the name of the printer, and it uses a “solvent-based, ceramic ink" to print onto tempered or laminated glass. It can print edge-to-edge on sheet glass up to 84" x 144". My understanding of the process is that the Alice printer uses frit (finely ground ceramic particles) mixed with pigments and a solvent. It shoots drops of the liquid frit onto the sheet of glass and then immediately heats it. The final printed glass is almost perfectly smooth — the graphic has literally been baked into it — which makes it scratch-proof and pick-proof. There doesn’t seem to be much limit to the ink opacity levels, or to color-matching, although it should be noted that it doesn’t use CMYK; its base enamel colors are black, white, blue, red, yellow, turquoise, green, orange, and “etch.” Overall, I was impressed with the vibrancy and crispness of the Alice-printed glass that I saw at the trade show. I’ve ordered a sample from the manufacturer, to take another, longer look at this stuff. If you have had any firsthand experience using it, please get in touch and let me know what you thought of it.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 21 November 2009.