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.

California Academy of Sciences, part 2: color and quakes

If forced to choose, my favorite part of the California Academy of Sciences would be the Rainforest Dome — check out Part 1 of my visit — but there were many other fascinating exhibitions to enjoy, including Color of Life: Discover Nature's Secret Language, designed by the museum’s Exhibits Studio and opened last year.

The exhibition uses bright, bold colors, beautiful photographs, and accessible writing to “reveal the significant roles color plays across a spectrum of species.”

Within the 8,000 square foot exhibition are immersive interactive experiences, including a musical color visualizer, designed by Tellart. Video screens respond to strings, plucked by visitors, with a show of images and videos related to that string’s color.

Another popular interactive experience is the “Courtship Dance Stage.”

Throughout the exhibition are dioramas and small interactives that allow you to see organisms under different types of lighting, or through the eyes of other animals (just for example).

Also 8,000 square feet in size, the older (circa-2012) exhibition, Earthquake: Life of a Dynamic Planet, explores the seismic science of Earth’s geologic transformations through installations such as a 25-foot-wide, walk-through model of Earth, and the immersive “Shake House.”

Other sections of the Earthquake exhibit focus on the diverse life forms that evolved and spread as Pangaea split up, and earthquake preparedness.

There are mini-exhibits throughout the museum, including a show of Andy Warhol’s Endangered Species series of silkscreen prints, from 1983. In 2007 the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list; the other featured animals remain.

Other mini-exhibits focused on variation, in ladybugs and in humans. 

Rounding out my visit, I strolled through the Human Odyssey exhibition, an exploration of the origins of humankind, and the African Hall, home to classic, stuffy, stuffed-animal dioramas (and live penguins).

I highly recommend this museum — it’s beautifully designed, fascinating, and educational. I also recommend you consider picking up a City Pass if you plan to visit more than one museum. They are expensive in San Francisco — said from DC, where the museums are mostly free.

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Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 3 October 2016.

California Academy of Sciences, part 1: rainforests and reefs

I wrapped up June — oh, wow it’s August! — with a trip to Yosemite (happy birthday, National Park Service) and San Francisco, where I spent a day parade-watching and a couple days museum-going.

One museum that filled nearly an entire day was the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Below is a photo of the museum’s exterior and its brilliant Living Roof, as seen from the de Young Museum.

There are so many exhibits within “the Academy” (and so many photos to show) that I’ve broken this post into two parts. Part 1 here covers the Aquarium on the lower level, designed by Thinc Design, and the Rainforest on Level 1.

After entering the museum I was swept up with the crowds heading to the 4-story, 90-foot-diameter Rainforest Dome. Inside, the rainforest visit begins on a Bornean forest floor, winds upward through a Madagascan mid-story and a Costa Rican canopy, then ends on the lower level in an Amazonian flooded forest.

As a designer, I liked the dome’s juxtaposition of glass and steel and abstracted jungle motifs against living flora and fauna, and the changing vistas as I moved further up the dome. As a nature enthusiast, I enjoyed its subject matter; as a weary museum visitor, I appreciated its delivery: not too much, not too little; brief, interesting, and useful.

The bright, straightforward graphics make use of vivid photographs, and the occasional illustration of an animal signals your arrival in a new area of the jungle. Bamboo- or vine-like vertical posts give a stylized–naturalistic element to exhibit tanks. The light touch with exhibit elements gives the rainforest dome a feeling of exploration and discovery (just ignore the school groups).

At the top of the dome, look out over the three stories you’ve just visited, and down, through a 100,000 gallon tank, to the flooded forest floor. Take an elevator down, then enter the tunnel you were just looking through from afar. Everyone says “oooh.”

The aquarium level felt jam-packed and massive; it’s where I spent most of my time during a 3 hour + visit. There were many exhibitions to see: Amazon Flooded Forest, Water Planet, California Coast, Coral Reefs of the World, Twilight Zone, and more.

Down here, animal identification is found on digital touchscreens. They were intuitive and fun to use, and had just the right amount of information: an animal’s common name, its scientific name, diet, and a one-sentence fact about it.

Below are some photos of the Water Planet exhibition, which groups underwater animals by adaptations. Projected blue and green lighting casts an underwater glow on the sculptural wave walls (similar material here). In the center of the room are curvilinear tanks. (I was reminded of the Van Cleef & Arpels traveling exhibition, circa 2012. It must be the bubbles.)

The highlight of the Coral Reefs of the World exhibition is the 25-foot deep Philippine Coral Reef tank (above). The exhibit graphics in this area are large image-based wallpapers.

The exhibition Twilight Zone: Deep Reefs Revealed had just opened on June 10. It’s memorable for its tanks filled with the most incredible jellies and vivid deep sea fishes.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 23 August 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.

My hazy memories of the Perot Museum

A few days ago I was talking with some colleagues about the Perot Museum of Nature and History in Dallas, Texas. Someone remembered one responsive interactive; I remembered a different one ... and then I remembered that I haven’t shared any photos from my visit (nearly a year ago).

The responsive interactive I remembered was located in the lobby. Models of water molecules danced up and down from the ceiling in response to the movements of people below. The molecule models were controlled by cameras in the ceiling that sensed movement and triggered motors that made them dance.

And that’s about where my specific memories break down. What I do remember is how large the museum is, with 11 permanent exhibit halls, and that the day I went it was JAM-PACKED.

There was something there for everyone though, even if it took a bit of maneuvering to get around and find it. I liked the dinosaur gallery:

And bits and pieces of other galleries, including the entrance to the Gems and Minerals Hall:

I was really taken with these benches sprinkled throughout the museum, with their cut-out factoids:

Overall, we were intrigued, learned some things, and had fun. (Just don’t ask me for details.)

I’ll wrap this post up with a photo I took of the roof. From the museum’s Wikipedia page: “It has a stone roof which features a landscape of drought-tolerant greenery inspired by Dallas surroundings. … Building on the museum’s commitment to resource conservation, the new building integrates a variety of sustainable strategies including a rainwater collection system that captures run-off water from the roof and parking lot, satisfying 74% of the museum’s non-potable water needs and 100% of its irrigation needs.”

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 20 March 2014.

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 02.17.11

A compilation of design-related web finds.

The realities of renovating the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, CT after it was hit by a tornado | The winner of the PaleoArt Prize in 3D art for “achievement in ... depicting or sculpting paleontological subjects and fossils” | China asks the Penn Museum to return all artifacts from its Silk Road exhibition | The New York Times, on scalies | Winners of this year’s MoMA PS1 Young Architects program asked local businesses and nonprofits what materials they needed, then designed the courtyard space to incorporate those materials, with the intention of donating them at the end of the summer | An exhibit of tattooed arms in Paris | And another, of dismembered dandies, in Sweden | South African printmaking at Boston University’s 808 Gallery | Edward Gorey at the Boston Athenæum | Tangible Things at Harvard | The Charles Hayden Planetarium in Boston reopens after a $9 million yearlong reconstruction | The Museum of Arts and Design’s new Center for Olfactory Art | The reopening of the American Museum of the Moving Image; inaugural events continue.

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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 17 February 2011.

Electricity, at the Franklin Institute

Electricity at The Franklin Institute is about “the wonders of electricity … this interactive exhibit dedicated to the Museum’s namesake, Benjamin Franklin” serves up historical artifacts, cute diagrams ...

… and plenty of techy interactives. The exhibit promises, “Learn how electricity is created and explore the fuel sources needed to generate our electricity. You’ll feel the force of electricity by manipulating electrical phenomena, exploring authentic artifacts … and tackling questions of sustainable energy.” Below, a touch screen to explore Ben Franklin's book Experiments and Observations on Electricity:

The “Electrical Signals” wall: use your phone and it responds with flashing LEDs. It was a lot of fun.

There were group interactives and experiments, and a “sustainable dance floor” which was a blast for all. The exhibit is ongoing.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 16 January 2011.

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.

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.

Escher’s optical phenomena

Inside the Mind of M.C. Escher at the Museum of Science, Boston, through September 6 — a lot of fun.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 1 August 2010.

The News 06.23.10

A compilation of design-related web finds.

Sometimes it seems like there really is a museum for and about everything. Name a topic, and I bet you can find an obscure museum dedicated to it. Tractors? Barbed wire? Plastics? Architectural models? Chinese shadow puppets? Battlestar Galactica? | Natural history exhibits opening this summer, in no way exhaustive: Whales at the Museum of Science, Boston (they offer a museum admission/whale watch ticket combo); The Deep at the Natural History Museum, London; Race to the End of the Earth, about Arctic explorers, at the American Museum of Natural History; the AMNH’s Climate Change exhibit moves to the Field Museum in Chicago; Age of Mammals, a “a postmodern diorama” in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles’s newly restored 1912 building | This photo of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum’s collection of thousands of birds is just great | A Micro Museum for the Design of and with Typography; Typopassage Vienna is inside the Museumsquartier in Vienna and open 24 hours a day, every week of the year. (Curious; who’d be there at 4am?) | Shape Lab, an interactive educational space for families. Who wouldn’t want to play there? | The British Museum and Wikipedia’s unusual collaboration.

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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 23 June 2010.

The News 03.30.10

A compilation of design-related web finds.

The Future is Collaborative from the Center for the Future of Museums; a call for libraries, archives, and museums to share resources | The MoMA blog has chronicled the development of the museum’s newest exhibition, Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront, since November. ArchDaily has a descriptive article about the projects on view | Across the Atlantic? Another show about sustainability, Sustainable Futures, just opened at Design Museum London | Once you start to explore the Museum of Online Museums (review) just try to stop | The Art Handling Olympics, “a combination roast, ‘Jackass’-style stunt extravaganza, and excuse to drink a lot” | The Regent’s Place Pavilion in London looks beautiful in photos | I saw these sliding shelves and thought, hm ... add descriptive labels or an interactive prompt, and you’ve got yourself a nice display case. Or maybe I just see “museums” everywhere.

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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 30 April 2010.

Mathematica, the Eames-designed exhibit

The legendary Charles and Ray Eames are perhaps best known for their design of a certain lounge chair, but let’s not forget their architecture, print design, photography, film, textiles — and exhibitions. During their career they designed more than a dozen, of which only Mathematica: A World of Numbers ... and Beyond — from 1961! — is still on view.

Three versions were created and two of them remain open to the public: one at the New York Hall of Science and the other at Boston’s Museum of Science. Update: There is now a third at The Henry Ford Museum.

Probability, Topology, Boolean Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, and Logic ... I don't feel particularly moved by any of those, but inarguably this exhibition, with all its quirks and charms, makes math accessible and interesting. I have been to it a number of times, and it’s usually packed with people happily learning about mathematics and engaging with the interactive exhibits.

The photos above are of my favorite part of the exhibit: the case about projective geometry. I like the colors of the geometric shapes, the way that the pieces are held in position by Inspector Gadget-like hinged poles, and the grid on the bottom of the case. The graphics perched on black blocks are simple and handsome.

The photo below is of another element in the exhibit that I like: math-related quotation panels overhead, playing nice with the track lighting frame.

Mathematica is successful as an exhibit about math, but more importantly, from an exhibit-design standpoint it is an incomparable artifact, a fascinating time capsule of an exhibit designed during the 1960s.

I’m a sucker for retro graphic design, but I have to say that I don’t like the illustrations. They’re cute and fun, I suppose, but they annoy me.... I ... hate them. There, I said it.

I also don’t like that some parts of the exhibit look as though they were pasted together for a high school statistics class presentation. Picture below, on the right: I'm talking to you. This encased collage is deadly boring and it’s often skipped in favor of the fun hands-on interactives, which are fantastic.

The other part of the exhibit that doesn’t do it for me is the math history wall. I have heard it described as wallpaper, or an art piece. The black and white bars do create a graphically interesting pattern, but then the wall is cluttered up with other bits of browning paper and artwork.

The capitalized, justified serif font used is extremely difficult to read, if you were inclined to try. It makes me dizzy. And yet the darnedest thing: people do sometimes read it. (I have no idea....) Another (obvious) issue with this wall is that the timeline ends in 1961, and the MOS’s solution, a poster, is not well integrated. NYSCI’s solution, an interactive monitor, is a better one, at least in theory. (I haven't been to the New York Mathematica to see it firsthand.)

I like the “probability machine.” The full text reads: THE T/HEORY/OF PR/OBABI/LITIES/IS NO/THING/MORE/THAN/GOOD/SENSE/CONFI/RMED/BY CA/LCULATION. :LA/PLACE/1796

Balls fall from above and form a bell curve. Simple, elegant — and if the text is a little wonky, it does force you to read it over a few times to understand, maybe making you internalize its message.

I feel like quite the curmudgeon with my criticisms of Mathematica. The exhibit is nearly fifty years old, after all — it’s miraculous that it still exists. And despite its literal dustiness, it is an exhibit beloved and cherished by many, a vintage exhibit that allows us to step back in time to experience firsthand a 60s era exhibit full of the Eames’s joie de vivre, fun, and humor. I think any designer would agree that that in itself is pretty cool.

If you have been, what do you think?

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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 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 01.19.10

A compilation of design-related web finds.

L.A.’s Natural History Museum to receive $1-million grant for new permanent exhibition | Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront — I’ve been following with interest the progress of the program and upcoming exhibit on the MoMA/P.S.1 blog | Towards a New Mainstream? On 27 January 2–3pm EST, a lecture by Gregory Rodriguez exploring demographic change in the Americas, cultural transformation, and the future of museums | Color Identifying System for the Color Blind | An Increasing Craving for Experiences; there has been a lot written lately about experience-over-stuff — hello, museums! | Light Touch interactive projector turns any flat surface into a touchscreen | An Architect’s Philosophy of Photography | Steffen Dam: Specimen Panels These are beautiful; very “natural history museum” | Barton’s Bonbonniere, From Architectural Forum c. 1952 — I love it! What a fun space.

AND NOW, something from the portfolio:

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

This time last year (January 17, 2009), the Tampa Bay History Center — designed by Christopher Chadbourne & Associates — held its grand opening in downtown Tampa, Florida. I worked closely with the project’s senior graphic designer Jeff Stammen on design development.

(Photo above and first three photos below, courtesy Tampa Bay History Center.)

I took a leading design role for the timeline (Your Tampa Bay) and the War Stories gallery. Below is my sketch of the War Stories gallery, and below that, a photo I took during installation — hence the empty case.

All the graphics in this museum were designed with both English and Spanish text. I love the challenge of designing multilingual graphics.

I was also responsible for Construction Administration, and supervised the exhibit installation. I love shop visits, site visits, inspecting fabrication samples … all of that. What happened with the Tampa installation was a little … let’s just say, complicated. The local fabricator, Creative Arts, was fantastic and saved the installation day in a lot of ways. I ended up effectively living in a hotel room for a couple weeks during the tail end of installation — much longer than my trip to Tampa was supposed to be. It was quite the learning experience. In hindsight, I can say I had fun.

(Photo above and photo below, courtesy Tampa Bay History Center.)

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 19 January 2010.

Invention, Energy, and Exploration at CT Science Center

The Connecticut Science Center opened this past June, boasting ten galleries and 40,000 square feet of exhibits, and 150+ hands-on interactives. The building is nice, too — kinetic sculptures hang in the vertigo-inducing, six-story-high central atrium.

One aspect of the architecture that I really like is the number of windows. There are windows in the exhibit galleries that look out on the city of Hartford, and windows that look in, down on the atrium. To pause at those windows provides welcome and needed little moments of serenity.

I went to the science center on the rainy-day Friday after Thanksgiving. Yikes.

The pictures I am about to show will give you little sense of the number of people there, nor of the mayhem happening around me. It seemed that just about everything in the museum spun, whistled, bounced, beeped, whizzed, banged … and was covered in smudgy little fingerprints.

The Invention Dimension exhibit is about “the process of developing new products, new theories, new substances, and new uses for items that no one has ever thought of or attempted before.” The graphics are friendly, with rounded corners and bright, vibrant colors, and nicely illustrated — the illustrations are bold yet finely-detailed as in technical drawings.

Energy City, about alternative energy technologies, was my favorite exhibit. I would describe the graphics as future-retro, with bright, bold colors, and video game-inspired diagrammatic illustrations. It was fun to see.

The graphic panels appeared to be printed on a metallic substrate then laminated with a protective film, or printed on the second side of a laminating film. The sheer number of graphic panels here was impressive.

Exploring Space — spelled out in acrylic dimensional letters, over a color-changing lightbox.

The large-scale images of extraterrestrial surfaces were striking as background murals. Area panels were front- and rear-printed on frosted acrylic, making effective use of the material’s depth. Graphics, especially the reader rail graphics, were cleanly designed with subtle textural details and interesting diagrams.

The Forces in Motion exhibit, about the power of the wind, magnets, and robotics, took advantage of its high ceilings: swaths of bold colors, supergraphic-sized type (FREEZE!), and huge vector diagrams on the walls.

There is a “design your own mag-lev (magnetic levitation) train” interactive which was a lot of fun.

The exhibits use low-energy lighting fixtures, which cuts their energy usage to 40% that of traditionally-lit exhibit spaces. It was too close to sensory-overload for my tastes, but if you’d like to engage with dozens of stellar exhibit interactives, you should take a trip here.

The exhibits were designed by Thinc Design (NY) and Jeff Kennedy & Associates (Boston), with many interaction designers: Snibbe Interactive, aesthetec, Boston Productions, Red Hill Studios, and I don't know who else (150+ interactives makes for a lot of interaction designers).

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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 29 November 2009.