Before anyone draws anything, the team needs to organize the thinking about — and behind — the exhibition. Who is the visitor? What do they need to experience? What does success look like?
Exhibition design is a project management discipline as much as a creative one. Decisions made in the planning phase — about budget, schedule, visitor objectives, and team roles — constrain every phase that follows. A design team that skips planning will spend twice as long in design and fabrication correcting misalignments that a two-day planning session would have surfaced immediately.
Planning is also the phase when the client relationship is established. The project charter, developed in this phase, creates a shared understanding of what the team is building and what each member is responsible for. Without it, the exhibition will be designed by whoever has the loudest voice in the room.
Someone will need to make the decision to visit the exhibition. They will travel to the museum by car, taxi, bus, subway, or on foot. They will arrive at the museum's front door. The planning question is: why did they decide to come?
We each have internal drives that shape our decisions. Understanding why a visitor would choose to spend their time and money to see your exhibition — what problem it solves for them, what curiosity it answers, what experience they are seeking — is the foundation of all design decisions that follow.
Who is the target visitor for this exhibition? Age, prior knowledge, motivation to visit, how they travel to the museum, how long they typically stay. Be specific — "families with children ages 5–12" is more useful than "the general public."
What do you want the visitor to know, feel, and do after experiencing the exhibition? Write objectives in terms of visitor outcomes, not institutional intentions. "Visitors will understand how ecosystems change over time" is a visitor objective. "We will showcase our collection of fossils" is not.
Before designing anything new, conduct a walk-through of the existing exhibitions. Talk to floor staff about what is working and what is not. Review visitor comment books if available. Look for patterns in where visitors linger and where they pass through quickly.
Photograph the current exhibition spaces and the space designated for the new exhibition. Measure ceiling heights, column locations, door openings, electrical panel locations, and HVAC positions. These dimensions will govern the design before a single concept drawing is made.
Prior to meeting the client for the first time, gather general background information: review the museum's website, note admission and membership costs, understand the location and surrounding demographics, and note the total square footage of the building. Arriving prepared signals to the client that you take the project seriously.
A project charter is a contract between the museum and the project stakeholders describing the roles and responsibilities for each team member. It is the most important document produced in the planning phase — and the one most often skipped.
Without a project charter, decisions about who has authority to approve drawings, who writes content, who manages the fabrication budget, and how disputes are resolved will all be improvised — usually at the worst possible moment.
Start a numbering system at the very beginning of the project — not mid-design when confusion about which drawing is current becomes a daily problem. Artifacts, drawings, exhibit elements, video content, electrical outlets, and graphic panels will each need a unique identifier. The numbering system should be logical, hierarchical, and communicated to every member of the project team on day one.
The National Park Service's Harpers Ferry Center offers a free exhibit planning template that works well as a database foundation for tracking content elements and project requirements. It runs on FileMaker and can be modified to fit a project's specific needs.
Starting a numbering system after design is underway typically requires renumbering hundreds of elements, updating every drawing, and reconciling the database with documents already sent to fabricators. One week of planning saves weeks of correction.
The planning phase is when reality is established. The "numbers" question encompasses more than a budget line item — it includes staffing needs, projected attendance, marketing approach, and schedule for every phase from design through installation and opening.
What is the total budget for the exhibition? Break it into design fees, fabrication costs, AV and technology, content development, graphics, installation, and contingency. A minimum 10–15% contingency is standard. Review the budget with the client before design begins — changing scope after drawings are complete is expensive for everyone.
Working backward from the opening date, map the schedule for each phase: planning, design, fabrication, installation, and soft opening. Include review and approval periods. Fabrication typically takes 12–18 weeks for a mid-scale exhibition; rushing fabrication is the single most common cause of opening-day problems.
How many visitors are expected? How will you reach them? Internet marketing, print advertising, TV placement? The answers inform exhibition programming, the number of simultaneous visitor paths the design must accommodate, and the durability requirements for interactive elements.
How many floor staff will the exhibition require? Will it include interpreter positions, or will it be fully self-guided? If interactive elements require staff facilitation, those positions must be budgeted before fabrication begins — not added as an afterthought after opening.
Accessibility planning belongs in Phase I, not Phase IV. The Americans with Disabilities Act requirements for museum exhibitions cover aisle widths, interactive element heights, text size and contrast, hearing loop systems, tactile elements, and wayfinding. Retrofitting ADA compliance into a completed design is costly. Building it in from the beginning adds little cost and often produces better design for all visitors.
During the planning phase, review ADA standards for the specific exhibition type, consult with accessibility specialists if the project includes complex interactive elements, and document accessibility objectives in the project charter alongside visitor experience objectives.
The steps of the exhibition design process are similar for art museums, natural history museums, science centers, and children's museums. The differences are in the content — the design process is the same.
Mark Walhimer · Museum Planning LLC