The News 08.16.12

A compilation of design-related web finds.

The Google Web Lab at the Science Museum in London | Designing for Accessibility: MoMA’s Material Lab | Harvard Medical School’s “Training the Eye” course | SEGD is hosting a symposium, “The Art of Collaboration” (link no longer available) in Raleigh October 4–5 | The last day to see the Terracotta Warriors in North America is August 26 in Times Square | The National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia now offers free admission for their first floor gallery | Why the Museum of Broken Relationships is so great (it’s not just the name) | 100 Toys that Define Our Childhood — vote for your favorites for a new exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. Voting ends tomorrow, August 17 | Places that Work: U.S. Botanic Gardens | Spiders Alive! at the American Museum of Natural History (NY Times review) | Are some fonts more believable than others? and How to explain why typography matters | I’ve been pinning obsessively over on Pinterest.

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 16 August 2012.

Game on: The Art of Video Games

I visited The Art of Video Games at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. (It’s gotten quite a bit of press — here is one thoughtful review, from The Mary Sue.) The exhibit covers the past 40 years of video game art and includes interviews of game designers and developers, conceptual art, video displays of 80 games (voted on by the public), and playable games (five, for the five eras of game technology).

I would have loved to play some Super Mario Brothers, but the wait was at least 10 kids deep so I had to move on. Vintage game consoles were on display in lit display “consoles,” along with video game stills and interpretive text.

The exhibit designers describe their process and the materials and production techniques used, in this blog post from Smithsonian Exhibits. There is also an upcoming gallery talk, “Building The Art of Video Games“ (link no longer available) on August 21. For those of you not in the DC area, the exhibit will travel beginning late October.

Post updated in January 2021 with text edits. Broken links have been replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 15 August 2012.

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.

Changing Earth, at the Franklin Institute

Changing Earth at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia is about land, air, and water, and how these have changed and continue to change on our planet. There’s a lot happening in this exhibit and it was sometimes overstimulating, but overall it was nicely designed with clear ”take-home” messages and memorable interactive experiences.

The designers, Adirondack Studios, used environmentally-sensitive materials throughout the exhibit. From the museum’s website: “Changing Earth is constructed of sustainable materials. The flooring is made from recycled content and post-consumer waste products. All wood is Forest Stewardship Council certified or bamboo. All metal is recyclable. Paint is low-VOC and graphics are printed on recycled material using water-based inks.”

I visited this exhibit about a year ago, not too long after it opened (and wrote this post about the exhibit, Electricity, which had opened at the same time). My memories of the details are a little fuzzy I’m afraid, but both exhibits are still on view if you’d like to see them in person.

The centerpiece of the exhibit was a giant Earth dome (photo above) which housed an introductory film.

The exhibit was full of interactives and touchable displays, such as a stream table, weather forecast station, and earthquake simulator.

Below is an example of the direct-to-substrate printing used throughout the exhibit.

Post updated in January 2021 with text and photo edits. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 4 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.

Old Faithful Visitor Education Center (Happy Holidays)

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

This vintage Yellowstone ornament, a gift from my dad, holds extra significance because of my work on the design of the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center in Wyoming. The Education Center held its Dedication Ceremony and Grand Re-Opening earlier this year, on August 25.

The Old Faithful Visitor Education Center teaches the science behind Yellowstone National Park’s stunning hydrothermal and geological features.

As part of the Christopher Chadbourne & Associates design team, I worked on Design Development, and the Production Services phase. Ernesto Mendoza was the senior graphic designer.

Here’s a project description at SEGD that goes into detail about the design considerations and process, and an article from inhabitat with more photographs.

(The good photographs (i.e. those to the left and below, and the three at the bottom of this post) are by Jay Rosenblatt.)

I took on a lead design role for the Yellowstone is a Natural Laboratory area, and developed the visual concept, inspired by scientists’ gridded field notebooks. The entire exhibit, and this area in particular, used many interactive elements to explain complicated scientific concepts in an accessible way.

Here’s an elevation of the Norris Geyser Basin section (the graphic design was tweaked after this):

And because it’s fun to look back, here are some photos from a shop visit at Pacific Studio. It’s always exciting to see designs mocked up like this. (Not as exciting as the final exhibit, of course!) We used a lot of direct print on frosted P95 acrylic, and digital prints applied to sign blank (wrapped with an overlam), for graphic panels.

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 26 December 2010.

Don’t touch the walls

MASS MoCA with one of the most nicely-worded “don’t touch” signs I’ve seen in an art museum. Can’t argue with these handprints.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 14 November 2010.

New England Habitats

At the Museum of Science, Boston they’ve quietly redesigned the graphics in their New England Habitats exhibit. Direct print on solid wood, matte varnish. Nice!

Apparently, there are gremlins painted into some of the diorama backdrops. (From the link above: “Artist Francis Lee Jaques, famous for his ability to blend background paintings seamlessly with three-dimensional foregrounds, painted many of these along with several other Museum dioramas. When he was on lunch break, Jaques’ wife sometimes snuck into the hall and painted little, hidden gremlins into his backgrounds. Look for her handiwork in the Crane Beach diorama!”) I never noticed this, but now must go to the museum to confirm….

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 10 October 2010.

State of Deception, at USHMM

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a temporary exhibition State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda that I’d like you all to see. (I know I have a stellar track record of posting about temporary exhibits after they’ve closed, but not this time — State of Deception is open through December 2011.)

The exhibition, by the museum’s description, “reveals how the Nazi Party used modern techniques as well as new technologies and carefully crafted messages to sway millions with its vision for a new Germany.” There are books, posters, newspapers, and photos to look at, archival sound recordings to listen to, and films to watch. There’s a lot to take in, but the exhibition does a great job of leading you through and presenting its themes clearly and succinctly.

I was drawn in by the compelling design of the exhibit’s graphics. I liked the modernist layouts, which reminded me of Die Neue Typographie and Jan Tschichold’s work during the mid–late 1920s. (Side note: Tschichold was arrested by the Nazis for his “un-German typography.”...If you're interested in being led astray by the internet: do some research into Nazi Germany’s changes in typeface doctrine.)

I liked that each graphic was unique — the torn paper and painting texture is all custom done. An interesting thing the designers did was to change the lengths of the secondary and label-level text panels to fit the length of the text. With a relatively small exhibit like this, it works well, though it would certainly be difficult to control for in a larger exhibit. But here it made every panel seem intentional and thoughtful. A lot of care was put into these graphics, and the effect is quite beautiful. I wanted to read every single label.

I also recommend that you spend some time with the exhibition’s accompanying website, if you make it to the exhibition in person or not. It is rich with information and the website design ties in well with the exhibition’s.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 7 October 2010.

Two Whales

Update: The Whale Museum no longer exists. Instead, the Dorr Museum is located on the edge of the College of the Atlantic campus; exhibits are designed and produced by College of the Atlantic students.

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A few photos from the Bar Harbor Whale Museum in Maine, an unassuming experience, with some whale skeletons and exhibits of marine mammals, prepared by students and staff of the College of the Atlantic.

Whales/Tohorā is at the Museum of Science, Boston through September 14. Just like at the Whale Museum, you will learn fascinating facts about whales: The first whales walked on land! Baleen whales have two blowholes! Toothed whales have only one! Unlike the Whale Museum, Whales/Tohorā is a slick exhibit with clearly a much bigger budget. It was developed by the Museum of New Zealand/Te Papa Tongarewa.

The black, slightly angled, reflective platforms below the two largest whale skeletons are a dramatic centerpiece to the exhibit. I found myself returning to this display numerous times to look again. The same technique was used for some of the smaller skeletons too, like that of the walking whale (below, right). Graphics were all rear-lit. It’s a fine line with rear-lit graphics … a soft glow is easier on the eyes.

The structure of this timeline/artifact case reminds me of a backbone and rib cage, and ever-so-slightly of the Design for a Living World exhibit I saw at the Cooper Hewitt.

The whale skulls cases (below) are beautiful. Everything looks substantial and high quality. I like this straightforward presentation style when showing multiples: Keep the design minimal and the text to a minimum.

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed. This updated post, originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 12 August 2010, was combined with a similar post dated 8 August 2010.

American High Style

Mannequins like models on a runway, posed dramatically or playfully, frozen under spotlights in otherwise dimly-lit exhibit rooms. Stylized design details like gold dimensional letters for titles, and the mannequins’ sculpted hairstyles, added just a touch of flair to the restrained presentation.

American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection, at the Brooklyn Museum, is presented in honor of the transferred stewardship of the Brooklyn Museum’s costume collection to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum, and as a complement to the Met’s exhibit, American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity. The Met’s presentation is decidedly more theatrical, with its painted backdrops, props, wigs, and themed galleries. I haven’t yet seen it in person but I have seen photos, and I plan (to try) to catch it before it closes on August 15. Because that seems like the thing to do: see both and compare them.

But back to the Brooklyn Museum. Do see American High Style, I highly recommend it. And hurry — it closes on August 1.

The layout of the exhibit was straightforward, and it was apparent that a lot of thought was put into its organization. Approximately 85 mannequins were arranged into six groupings: the House of Worth, French Couture 1900–1940 and 1946–1970, the designer Elsa Schiaparelli, the designer Charles James, American women designers, and American men designers. Additionally, there were accessories and design sketches, a wall of rare dolls dressed in the finest French fashions from 1715–1906, and a room filled with shoe prototypes and drawings by Steven Arpad (a highlight). With all this to see, the exhibit was still succinct in its offering, and the accompanying text was interesting to read.

The mannequins stood on plywood “runways” with label text printed directly onto the plywood, with a subtle translucent white screen as first layer. (I'm guessing, as I can't tell for certain from my photographs and my memory fails me. Second guess: applied film. Anyone?) I liked the un-embellished, though still polished, plywood but not the trough-like detail at the front of the “runways.” It would have been cleaner if instead of its V shape, the runway were still angled at the front, but then went straight down, perpendicular to the floor. This was my only (minor) critique of an overall truly nice-looking exhibit.

Further reading: Closet Encounters: Charting the rise of the fashionable American woman, The New Yorker; The Art of Style, and the Style of Art, The New York Times

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 27 July 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.

The News 03.23.10

A compilation of design-related web finds.

The exhibition China Design Now at the Portland Art Museum transformed the city and demonstrated the four Cs of relevant museum experiences: Content, Conversation, Curation, and Continuation | I’m spending some quality time in the New York Times Museums Special Section | D-Shape printer uses sand and magnesium-based glue to print 3D rock sculptures ... potentially entire buildings ... potentially on the moon | The Curno Public Library in Italy is a “monolith of concrete pigmented with iron oxides, completely decorated with a bas-relief engraved with the letters of the alphabet.” Beautiful | Frank Gehry uses plywood in some funky ways for the Signature Theater Company in NY | Photos from Shanghai as it prepares for the 2010 World Expo — amazing creativity.

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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 23 March 2010.

The News 03.17.10

A compilation of design-related web finds.

Today, the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History opened its 15,000 square-foot Hall of Human Origins (original link no longer available). It looks nice. Lots of skulls | March is Women in History Month; to celebrate, the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum has a four-part online exhibition Women on Stamps | A behind-the-scenes video of The First Ladies at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History | The MoMA’s changing wall colors, from their blog (link no longer available) | An interactive matrix of green design strategies | Congratulations to Bisphenol A (BPA) — found in my friend vinyl — for its win at The Toxies in the category “Worst Breakthrough Performance and Viewer’s Choice Award for Worst Chemical of 2009” | Kinetic sculptures are awesome: Magic Wave by Reuben Margolin, and the BMW Museum’s kinetic sculpture | “Moomin Valley,” designed for a family entertainment center, is adorable and clever | I love, love, love, Tara Donovan. If you’re anywhere near Indianapolis between April 4 and August 1, you need to see her show at the Indianapolis Museum of Art | Tomás Saraceno (link added in 2021; very cool website) collaborated with astrophysicists, architects, engineers and arachnologists (spider researchers!) for this interactive art installation based on “the imagery and structure of spider webs to map the origin and structure of the universe” | Bruno Maag’s typographic exhibition Shape My Language in which “long streams of clear plastic cards hang from the ceiling, engulfing the gallery visitors in a typographic mist.”

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken link has been fixed, replaced, or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 17 March 2010.

Naked Ambition

About a month or two back I visited the Museum of Sex in NY — an unfortunate time to visit, as they were in the midst of a renovation that closed off their main entrance and rerouted the visitor flow to a back stairwell coated with drywall dust and redolent with body odor. (Because of the construction? Just the usual aroma of the museum? Not sure. Moving on.)

On view during that time was Naked Ambition, an exhibition of Michael Grecco’s photographs taken at the AVN Awards in Las Vegas (the “Oscars of porn”). The photos and their accompanying text were from the Naked Ambition art book, and the videos on view were clips from the Naked Ambition documentary.

Within the exhibition and on the accompanying website (link no longer available), the entire undertaking is described as “an R rated look at an X rated industry.” I think that description is fitting. The exhibit (photos of porn stars) and certainly this museum (about sex) are not everyone’s cup of tea and if your sensibilities are easily offended, you will be offended. Subject matter aside, I thought the photography was quite good, and the subjects’ stories were interesting. And since this blog is foremost about exhibition design, I am now moving on, again.

Lowercase Helvetica Rounded for the title, and the script typeface used for the “nicknames” above the photographs gave the exhibition just a touch of kitschy punch without distracting from the photographs. Overall, the design was pretty understated.

The biography text was too small and the line lengths too long, which made them difficult to read. A nice touch on these is the way they were produced: the entire text box was printed on vinyl with the names cut from the black band so that the wall showed through. I liked that.

There was an issue with shadows. The photos were all spot-lit from above, and in some areas this caused the frames to cast deep shadows over the text. It’s important to consider how shadows will affect graphics and other objects on display.

In addition to Spotlight on the Permanent Collection, there was a third temporary exhibit: Action: Sex and the Moving Image. I liked the design of the graphics, reminiscent of marquees, especially when backlit — as were the secondary-level stories. Since the room was so dark, though, reading the larger primary-level stories was difficult. (They were vinyl applied to the wall.) The tabletop screens made good use of the gallery space.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 13 March 2010.

Look down: memorable exhibit floors

The commercial carpeting seen on the floors of so many museums is oftentimes blah, ugly, or at best: invisible. The floor is a perfect place to execute a creative idea. It’s a fresh, unexpected spot. Here are some examples:

On the floor outside the entrance to Tim Burton at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is a spiral that collides with and veers up onto the wall, ending in an arrow that points the way to the gaping maw at the exhibition entrance. Clearly inspired, in general, by Mr. Burton’s distinctive style — and perhaps directly by this painting mentioned in MoMA’s blog — the spiral is fun and my favorite design detail from the exhibit.

Within the Exploring Space exhibit at the Connecticut Science Center, there are stars above and around you, in the form of tiny flickering LED lights embedded in the fabric-covered walls — and there are stars below you, projected onto the floor by GOBOs. This dark, starlit room allows you to pretend you are in deep space. (More from that museum visit in this blog post.)

In the Hall of Mammals at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, there is a treat for those who spend any time looking at their shoes: fossilized footprints visible through the floor. Below, on the left, is another example from that same exhibit. Because the video monitors were set in a row, many people could stand around and watch without crowding, and because they were set into the floor, the short video (about animals’ adaption to the wet and dry seasons of Africa) didn’t distract from the exhibitry. (More from that museum visit in this post.)

Above, on the right, is a reproduction of a 13'-square battlefield map of Gettysburg from Big! at the National Archives Museum. Walking on and looking down at this huge, beautiful, old map was more engaging than had it been traditionally hung on the wall.

Green Community at the National Building Museum in DC had a few interesting things going on with the floor: 1. More than one type of flooring material was used, which gave the floor variety in textural feeling underfoot; 2. Varied and interesting colors and patterns on the floor; 3. The exhibit’s main messages were integrated directly into the floor. Overall, the effect was very impressive. (More from that exhibit visit in this post — my very first blog entry!)

These are just a few I’ve seen. I’d love to hear about an exhibition floor you’ve seen that made an impression.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken link has been fixed or replaced. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 1 March 2010.

The News 02.16.10

A compilation of design-related web finds.

The Red Line Tour of Innovation in Boston. First stop: Ether Dome | I haven’t yet been to The New Typography at MoMA, but it is up there on my list of things to see. Interview with the exhibition’s curator | I have been to Slash: Paper Under the Knife at the Museum of Arts and Design in NY, and I can’t rave enough about it. I took home the exhibition catalogue — I love it | Israel now has a Design Museum | The Changing Landscape of Education in EGD, from Arrows & Icons Magazine | Hate mail | Patterned prefabricated concrete (link no longer available) | Where Ben Franklin Meets Supermodels. I love the Woodward and for some time have wanted to show you its modern/colonial cabinet of curiosities mashup style, but each time I go I am unfortunately too busy drinking delicious cocktails to be bothered with taking photos | Neon Bone Yard in Las Vegas | Gold leaf glass gilding by sign painter John Downer, a lost art | Beautiful,subtle wayfinding for Surry Hills Library | The Third & The Seventh; or take a quick look at the stills | The Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman, the interview | And finally, Happy Valentine's Day, to you.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed, replaced, or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 16 February 2010.

A clever use of alligator clips

A simple but clever idea: alligator clips to hold the information labels for an exhibit about robotics. Some labels are suspended from wires, while in other cases the clips hold the labels upright. Love it.

Robots and Beyond is at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA. Be sure to also check out the museum’s Kinetic Sculptures and Holography exhibits. They’re both magical.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 14 February 2010.

The News 02.02.10

A compilation of design-related web finds.

FREE Day at Mass MoCA | “When you’ve hit that saturation point and your attention wanes, go gladly home. Take your joyful experience and be thankful for it.” (How to Go to the Zoo) | And with that — zoos and aquaria are excluded from accessing funds in the recently-passed House version of the “Jobs for Main Street Act” (H.R. 2847, Sec. 1702) | Ideum released an open-source gesture library for Flash multitouch development | Sync/Lost is a multi-user audio-visual installation for exploring the history of electronic music and the relationships amongst its sub-genres | From Lunar, The Designer’s Field Guide to Sustainability; “materials, processes and resources that will lessen the impact of products on our ecosystem” | Metal foam | We Love Typography | Diana Larrea’s installations | Pentagram’s new identity for the North Carolina Museum of Art — I love it | Pole Dance by SO-IL for P.S.1’s Young Architects Program.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed, replaced, or replaced with archived URLs, courtesy of archive.org. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 2 February 2010.