Space and Time. Stories from the Neuchâtel Observatory
HKB MA Design Entrepreneurship – Exhibition Project
François Poncelet
Article on Openedition.org
During the interwar period a remarkable evolution has been in museography of art galleries. New practices are elaborated, developed and continued for a long time – actually up to now for some. The debates in which they originated sometimes strangely resemble the discussions that animate the museums today. A look to back is necessary…
David Whitemyer (Luci Creative)
Original paper on Museum Next
Museum exhibits can be pricey. Whether it’s a permanent installation or a travelling exhibition, myriad influences can affect the cost. Image acquisition, AV hardware, shipping, materials, and more, can quickly throw a conservative project budget way off track, unless these aspects are carefully considered during the design process.
Current estimates for the cost of museum exhibits are around $75 to more than $800 per square foot. This ridiculously wide range is due to a number of factors that differ from project to project, but which clearly make exhibit budget planning difficult, uncertain, and frightening. Whether your institution is flush with cash or on a shoestring budget, here are five proven methods for keeping your exhibition project costs in check:
Have a Contingency
A contingency is money set aside, to be used for increases in market costs or unforeseen items and services. For an exhibit project, it’s wise to have both a design contingency and a fabrication contingency. The design contingency can help fund great ideas that are born during the creative process, which might be financially more ambitious than the original program. A fabrication contingency will cover unpredictable costs related to things like travel, shipping and materials.
Reduce the Scope of Work
As the saying goes, “You can have anything, but you can’t have everything.” One of the fastest ways to get your exhibit costs in-line with your budget is to trim some of the fat. This could include implementing strategies such as reducing the project’s square footage or decreasing the number of trips or meetings.
Involve Fabricators Early
Whether you’ve hired a design-build firm or a sole exhibit design specialist, it helps to bring in a fabricator during the creative process. An exhibit fabricator can assess the physical design – from as early as the concept phase – to provide accurate cost estimates, material and finish suggestions, and coordinate ongoing museum architecture or general contracting work.
Communicate Honestly
This is a two-way street. Exhibit designers owe it to their museum clients to be frank if the project expectations and brainstorming ideas outweigh the project budget. Likewise, if during the creative process a designer is recommending solutions or technologies beyond your comfortable reach. If this happens then you need to speakup, put on the brakes, and reevaluate what your budget can afford.
Avoid the Bandwagon
It’s easy to get caught up in high-tech trends, and to assume that your visitors expect theatrical immersion, multi user interactive tables, mobile apps, and AR or VR experiences. Although these things can enhance a museum exhibition and provide unique content delivery, they may not be realistic within a conservative project budget. Consider these costs at the beginning of the project and involve a media developer in the conversation so that s/he can share ideas and provide alternatives that fit within your budget.
It’s likely that following just one of these five strategies will help to keep your exhibit project on budget, but you may need to meld a few of them. Working with your partners, the project budget should be discussed and re-assessed from day one – from the kickoff meeting through to the project’s grand opening. Everyone must be aware of the budget, so that the entire team can be responsible for keeping it in check.
Jamie Taylor curates, project manages and produces copy for museums and cultural organisations. He helps museums to tell stories about history, science, art and engineering. From diesel locomotives to dolls house furniture, he turns stories into a meaningful experience that connects museums with their audience.
Devon Turner
Original paper on Museum Next >
We’re aiming to cleanse the internet of cringe-worthy content. Help us spread the word about museum marketing mistakes to avoid so we can forever eliminate cut-off content and hours spent on admin.
Marketing is about appealing to the masses. From inaccessible web practice, to trashing good content, read all about what you shouldn’t do, to learn about what you should.
Jamie Taylor
Original paper on Museum Next >
User Centred Design (UCD) offers radical opportunities for user-driven exhibitions that fill a genuine need in people’s lives. It is a process that offers opportunity for continuous improvement based on insights from your visitors.
Chances are you’ve heard of UCD before. Designers use it to create intuitive and pleasurable experiences for people using their products. This is called the user experience (UX). It is the result of a series of considered and deliberate choices that are tested, reviewed and amended to meet a user’s needs.
When working with UCD, it’s vital that you test as much as you can. This can be done by specialists or it could be something that you do yourself. Whatever you’re able to do, do it early and do it often. An early test with three people is likely to be more use to you than a late test with thirty. Not only will three people likely pick up most of the big problems, you also have time to fix them before you have progressed too far. Be realistic about what you can change. It’s likely that you won’t have the resources to fix everything so instead concentrate on those that will make the biggest impact on your visitors.
The UCD process can be thought of as five overlapping planes. These are strategy, scope, structure, skeleton and surface. By completing each plane in order and testing the results, you are working towards turning an abstract idea into a UX that works for your visitors.
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Anna Faherty
Original paper on MuseumNext >
What does your museum sound like? I’m not referring to the chatter of schoolchildren or the ambient hum of dehumidifiers. I mean what do the words you use in marketing, wayfinding and interpretation sound like? More usefully, who do these words sound like?
Every piece of written communication produced by a museum tells visitors something about who the organisation is and what it stands for. The words, punctuation and sentence structures museums employ – and the perspectives they take – have power. They may invite and engage; they more bore or even exclude.
Imagine someone visiting your museum for the first time. Do the external signs sound warm and welcoming? Does the entrance signage invite them in or put them off? Does the wayfinding include terms they understand? Does the interpretation appreciate their lived experience and value their point of view? Does it sound like words pumped out by a faceless institution or does it feel like it was written by a living, breathing individual, complete with personal experience, emotions and flaws?
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STORY
In 2011, we – a team of Dutch innovators – joined forces with a Swiss investor with the aim of connecting cities, museums and their stories with travellers who wanted to explore the world in a brand new, innovative way: via a global, open and free platform. A bit like Facebook or Wikipedia. Although this idea wasn’t anything new, no-one had yet done it on such a large and ambitious scale.
izi.travel
Musée international d’horlogerie (MIH) – La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
