I call lots of museums.  I have become fascinated by the telephone systems of different museums, some museum telephone systems are easy to navigate and some are nerve racking and frustrating.

Exhibitions are a form of communication and the culture of the museum offers the “voice” to that communication.  Is the “voice” a friend? A teacher? An older relative?  It is fascinating the different voices that are communicated for exhibitions.  I like thinking in analogies, often I learn more about the culture of a museum from their phone system than I do from their organizational chart.  Is the phone system user friendly?  Easy to navigate? Helpful?  Able to connect me with the information in the way I want to connect?

Think about your own museum phone system and try calling as a teacher wanting to book a school trip.  Try calling as a mother wanting directions, try calling as the vendor who works on the air conditioning, for each call were your needs met?  Could you connect with the appropriate person?

In many ways a phone system is like a museum, callers are contacting the museum for information tailored to them in a welcoming fashion at their own level, a tall order, but try calling American Express and see how you feel or call Fidelity Investments and see how you feel.  Information tailored to the visitor in a pleasant and efficient manner, it can be done!

Great guideline from the Association of Children’s Museums 2010 Interactivity panel “The Changing Face of Technology in Children’s Museums”.

The 3/6/9/12 rule:

No computer screens before age 3, no internet before age 6, no electronic gaming until age 9 and no unsupervised internet before age 12.

“Killer Ring” By Tobias Wong, Photo Courtesy the New York Times

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Tobias Wong. Tobias was a young artist / designer living in New York City. Tobias blurred the lines between Art and Design and made us more aware of the american consumer culture.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/06/27/style/20100627WONG.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/fashion/27Wong.html

My firm Mark Walhimer Exhibition Design has been hired by the Los Vaqueros Intrpretive Center to create a schematic design for their new exhibits as part of their California Proposition 84 grant proposal.  As I am going through the process I thought it might be interesting to document the steps of the schematic design process.

1. Prior to the first meeting with the client gather general information (review website, admission cost, membership cost, location, demographics of location, museum square footage)
2. First meeting review current museum exhibitions and programs, review current museum objectives and mission, review with floor staff what is working well and not working well, understand desired outcomes of new exhibition
3. While with client create initial sketches and get feedback
4. While with client discuss possible exhibition ideas
5. Photograph current exhibition spaces and space for new exhibition
6. Document findings of first meeting
7. Review meeting notes with client
8. Create photo pages of the current exhibitions and space for new exhibition.  Review objectives as part of photo pages
9. Create style boards, a visual collage representation of the new exhibition
10. Create a Venn diagram of the visitor path and content
11. Review with client, photo pages, style boards and Venn diagram
12. Make revisions to photo pages, style boards and Venn diagram
13. Create framework for final design presentation
14. Create draft exhibition walk-through.  Describe the exhibition visitor experience
15. Create budget framework
16. Create schedule framework
17. Review budget and schedule with client, often it is helpful to review budget and schedule prior to designing exhibition.
18. Draft Schematic design drawings
19. Client feedback
20. Revise budget and schedule with client feedback on drawings
21. Revise drawings
22. Assemble draft schematic design presentation containing; general museum information, exhibition objectives, exhibition walk-through, budget, schedule, schematic drawings, exhibition narrative, Venn Diagram and Style board
23. Review draft design presentation with client
24. Make revisions to design presentation
25. Print out final design presentation either 11″ x 17″ or 8.5″ x 11″
26. One copy for client, one digital copy on CD

The above effort represents between 40 hours ($5000) and 320 hours ($40,000) depending on the exhibition square footage.  In a future post I will share a complete schematic design presentation.

Photo – Current entrance to Interpretive Center

Images: Daniele Mattioli

Amazing exhibition “Seed Cathedral” at Expo 2010 Shanghai China. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick.

http://www.heatherwick.com/uk-pavilion/

http://en.expo2010.cn/c/en_gj_tpl_71.htm

1. Science Centers – Most Innovative
2. Aquariums
3. Children’s Museums
4. Natural History Museums
5. Mobile museums
6. Military and war museums
7. Corporate museums
8. State history museums
9. Art Museums
10. Zoos
11. Local History Museums
12. Living History, Farm and Agriculture Museums
13. Historic houses – Least Innovative

At a museum conference session participants became defensive about adopting technology in museum galleries.  It got me thinking, “is there a “Spectrum of Innovation in Museums ?”".  “Are some types of museum more innovative than others?”

“Spectrum of Innovation in Museums” (for the purpose of the spectrum including Science Centers, Zoos, Living History and Aquariums). Such a spectrum is an insight into the culture of different institutions.

The question I asked myself, “how likely would the museum be to adopt a new technology? (not based on budget)”

Of course this is a generalization, would love to hear feedback.

- Mark

A friend sent the attached link amazing!  What if all transportation infrastructure was kinetic sculpture?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel

Concept Video:

http://www.bennettmg.co.uk/video/falkirk_concept.htm

In Operation:

http://www.bennettmg.co.uk/video/falkirk.htm

“Across the online environment, there is growing engagement with user-generated content which impacts on designers as they move from sole author and producer to facilitators of the design process. User-driven and open innovation models of collaboration are impacting on the design and development of services and while there is a growing body of theory exploring the basis of this innovation, there are few models for the way in which designers will practice within this environment.

We are currently witnessing transformations in the ways in which clients engage designers and the ways in which designers participate in the development of products, services and experiences. These transformations in design practice are closely aligned to changing audience expectation and a growing demand for user participation in the design process. This is in keeping with a shift from the development of a service to an experience economy. (Gilmore & Pine 1999, Rivkin 2000)

The notion of experience enterprises has been coined in response to the experience economy. It encompasses those enterprises, both commercial and publicly funded, which have at their heart, the mandate to attract new audiences/ consumers/ producers through the development of integrated, multiplatform experiences. For example, both Nike, with its hugely successful Nike + social networking campaign which facilitates the development of communities of runners worldwide and Flickr Commons, the photo-sharing facility developed for cultural organisations to share archival imagery focus on adding value to existing services by creating and sharing in memorable experiences.

In the museum environment, it is sometimes suggested that audiences/creators and producers are willing to pay more for products and services if these are provided in an atmosphere that generates ‘memorable’ experiences. If this is the case and designers have yet to explore the impact of the user/creator on their practice, what will it mean for the development of future museum communication programs?

This posting is a starting point for problematising a broader shift in consumption and production, recognising the profound impacts that these shifts will have on future design practices and in turn, the ways in which they will affect museum programs.

Some of the questions it seeks to explore include:
How will social networking affect design as an enterprise?
What will this mean to organisations which engage designers?
Will services and experiences converge?
Who will drive new models of design innovation?
How will innovation drive new audiences/clients?”

I have started a group on LinkedIn called “Artists, Science and Museums”.

Click to join

LinkedIn Link:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2869188

A networking group for artists, designers and museum professionals working in the field of Science Centers and Children’s Museums to share ideas about incorporating sculpture into science exhibitions.