Quick Thoughts

Habitat, in the snow

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Before the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted everyone’s life, if the weather were terrible … well, at least you could pop into a museum and while away an hour or two.

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Museums in the Washington, DC region are currently closed to the public, but there is still opportunity to see outdoor exhibitions — even in terrible weather. I took these photos yesterday, of the exhibition, Habitat, that I designed for Smithsonian Gardens. (More photos, taken in warmer times, along with a project description.)

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If you’re interested in exploring the Habitat exhibition, on the National Mall in Washington, DC, here is the wayfinding map to help you locate the different exhibits:

Christine Lefebvre Design - Habitat wayfinding map
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What interesting outdoor exhibitions have you seen recently? Let me know in the comments!

I Want to Design this Exhibit: Banned Books Week

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While scooting through downtown yesterday I saw these great big graphics on the side of the the DC Public Library on G Street.

I like the red blocks — they make me think of classified documents and redacted memos. Since the graphics had so successfully caught my attention, I was bummed to learn that I have missed Banned Books Week 2014 and its associated events. But I have enjoyed designing a little temporary exhibit in my mind ... books to flip through, excerpts printed large. I imagine someone reading one and saying, “really?! Charlotte’s Web??” and discussions about First Amendment rights and censorship.... Next year?

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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 3 October 2014.

Fun projects for the National Postal Museum

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

I spent the end of summer through early fall wrapping up construction administration work for the newly opened Stamp Gallery at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. (Designed by Gallagher & Associates.)

I inherited the project from a departing colleague and had very little to do with the design of the exhibit, but I did design the museum’s gallery guide, a fun little project.

I have also been working on a temporary exhibit for the Postal Museum called Pacific Exchange, about China–U.S. relations “through the lens” of stamps and mail. The opening is set for March and I am excited. I’ve really enjoyed the content and being able to give a good amount of attention to a small exhibit. Here’s a sneak peak of the design development:

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 19 November 2013.

Century of the Child, at MoMA

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I stopped in on Century of the Child, “an exploration and celebration of modern design for children in the 20th century,” at the Museum of Modern Art in NY. It was fascinating and delightful, and brought back some memories. For further reading definitely check out the exhibition website, the blog, and the tumblr.

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 19 August 2012.

Talk to Me, at MoMA

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I’d rather not include too many posts about now-closed exhibits that I saw ages ago, but in the case of Talk to Me at the MoMA, the online exhibit is itself worth exploring.

A simple but compelling design. I liked the pixel illustrations on the introduction wall and the punchy red walls and reader rails.

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 8 April 2012.

New England Habitats

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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.

Lists: not done

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Just my luck! I arrived when the exhibition Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists' Enumerations (in the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery at the Reynolds Center) was closed to transition from Part One to Two, when all the cases were empty and the only thing to read, teasingly, was the silkscreen on the wall. It would have been great to see the lists in person, but alas, I'll have to make due with the book.

Post updated in January 2021. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 27 June 2010.

Harvard Art Museum / Big

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A big entry sign ... and big gallery titles ... leading to a bigger Harvard Art Museum. The Harvard Art Museum is in the midst of a “transformation” that will bring its three separate museums — the Fogg, the Busch-Reisinger, and the Sackler — together in a renovated and expanded building on Quincy Street. The project, designed by Renzo Piano (naturally: his name seems to be on every museum’s expansion), is scheduled to open in 2013.

In the meantime, the Sackler offers Re-View, a survey of the three museums’ collections. It’s worth a visit if you are in Cambridge. After, you can take a stroll down the street and stop in here for a scoop of Milk Chocolate Gianduia.

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 20 June 2010.

Philagrafika

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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.

Look down: memorable exhibit floors

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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.

A clever use of alligator clips

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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.

Exhibit in a brewery

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The Long Trail Brewery in Bridgewater, Vermont has a self-guided brewery tour/mini exhibit. It consists of four reader rails along the sides of a catwalk above the factory floor.

The rails are moderately interesting in their descriptions of Long Trail’s brewing process, types of beer, and design of the factory layout. The diagrams are pretty well done. I liked the illustration of the workers pouring hops into the brewing vats, and bottle caps into the ... capper vats. And they made the effort in having a little exhibit, right?

The best part of the brewery is their collection of old beer cans:

Post updated in January 2021 with minor text edits. Broken links have been fixed. This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 26 December 2009.

Happy Holidays: a winter stick garden

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Today I came upon a winter stick garden “planted” outside Old South Church, on Boylston Street in Boston.

From the sign planted in front of the garden: “This stick garden is a sculptural abstraction of a drift of Red Osier Dogwood, a native shrub found across the eastern United States. ... The sticks were stained and installed by a team of Old South Church members as a labor of love and gift to the city.” Happy holidays.

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This post was originally published at theexhibitdesigner.com on 23 December 2009.