The Mascot Hall of Fame -- From Big Idea to Opening Day in 6 Months

Jacqueline Johnson leads client projects at Chicago Scenic Studios and has more than a decade of experience in the museum field — including positions at Chicago’s Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Blanton Museum of Art.  Jacqueline was kind enough to offer this guest post about the recently opened Mascot Hall of Fame.

Does project – and team - management make a difference in creating an excellent museum exhibit?

Ask the intrepid team of museum design, exhibit fabrication, and tech professionals who worked together to bring a Big Idea to life in just over six months.
 
The Big Idea - the Mascot Hall of Fame - was the brainchild of David Raymond, the creator of the Phillie Fanatic, the original team mascot of the Philadelphia Phillies. Four years ago, Raymond met Whiting, Indiana Mayor Joe Stahura, whose own quirky Pierogi Fest draws thousands to the small lakefront Indiana city each summer. Once those two met, they decided it was time to stop talking and bring the Hall of Fame to fruition on the City’s resurgent lakefront zone.
 
Next up, museum exhibit design firm JRA of Cincinnati and Chicago Scenic Studios, a Chicago design and fabrication firm, joined the team. The dream moved from vision to reality fast, becoming a 25,000 square foot facility that opened in late 2018 and houses exhibits, activities and events that celebrate sports mascots. 

 
Chicago Scenic’s primary project management team – Jim Mallerdino and Doug Peer, each experienced in fabrication and museum project planning - kept the team moving against a demanding timetable. In just six months, artisans and fabricators built the seven exhibits areas and environments that round out the interactive, fun, and family-oriented experience.
 
Oh and there’s this: Each of those exhibits areas speak the language of FUN to kids and adults alike, with playful names like Fuzzical Education, Fureshman Orientation, Science of Silliness, Marvelous Mascot Maker, Mascot Studies, The Furry Arts, and Frankenfur’s Mascots.

 
The Chicago Scenic team also managed the fabrication of two unique stores onsite – a gift store and a Build-a-Bear experience – and the larger group of skilled subcontractors who brought digital interactives, graphics, specialty flooring, specialty painting, and decorative inflatables to complete the Hall of Fame attraction.
 
While the museum targets 8-13-year-olds, its many layers of interactive exhibits, entertaining videos, authentic mascot experiences, and curated artifacts like the massive mascot heads hanging in the museum’s opening lobby, appeal to a much broader and older audience as well.
 
When a project of this size and scope is done right, a great team of professional museum designers, builders, and specialty service providers can almost make it look easy. How fitting for a place that pays tribute to sports mascots, characters that are brought to life by people toiling in heavy, hot, and furry costumes for hours on end – strutting, dancing, and entertaining fans.


Find out more about the Mascot Hall of Fame online at www.mascothalloffame.com/visit
 

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Replay: Great Exhibit "Seeds" in Chrome Music Lab

I've been working and thinking about music exhibits lately, so I've gone back to play around with Chrome Music Lab because I find so many of the ideas and approaches there so much fun. I think ExhibiTricks readers will find some great exhibit "seeds" by taking another look at this "replay" post.

Chrome Music Lab is a nifty collection of interactive "experiments" that lets users explore the fundamental elements of music like rhythm, chords, and harmonics. 

Google has assembled these collaborations between musicians and coders into one place for anyone with a Web browser to try out.   And best of all,  the Music Lab examples were built with the freely available Web Audio API, so anyone with the time and some technical know-how can put together similar interactive explorations into sound and music.

Even as a non-musician, I really enjoyed playing and experimenting with all the Music Lab modules, but two of my favorites were "Voice Spinner" and "Rhythm" (pictured below.)

In Voice Spinner, you use your computer's microphone to capture your voice and create "sonic circles"  that can then be played backward or forwards at different speeds.  Not only is it super fun, but the Voice Spinner interface really lends itself to repeated experimentation.  (I had fun trying to recreate the backward-tracking sections of old Beatles songs!) 

The "Rhythm" module lets you choose among sets of different cartoony animal musical combos. Each set of animals plays different percussion instruments that you can then control by clicking or un-clicking dots (like musical notes) onto a set of parallel lines.  Once you set everything into motion the animals play different rhythms in time to the dots you placed.   It's a deceptively simple interface that let's you set up really complex rhythmic patterns!  It's also really fun to use to collaborate with someone else.

Bravo to Google for turning Chrome Music Lab loose into the world! It's worth clicking over to the website to play with all the current modules --- each one of which can easily serve as creative inspiration for museum/exhibit/design folks!



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Are Exhibit Timelines So Boring Because of the Lines?

A while back I wrote a post asking for examples of interesting timelines in museum exhibitions.  Since then I've been wondering if the negative impressions so many visitors (and exhibit designers!) seem to have about timelines are actually a function of the flat, straight lines themselves.

Think about how daunting a seemingly endless line of jam-packed text and images seems when you are standing at the beginning point.  And now with the use of ever cheaper screens and digital storage devices, there is a proliferation of what one designer called "the promise of the infinite label" (as if that was a GOOD thing!)

So here are four different ways (with images) of rethinking, or replacing, the standard linear "encyclopedia pages on the wall" approach to exhibit timelines.

SPREAD OUT!

Instead of marching tons of text and images in a line across the wall, why not break the information into manageable chunks and spread it out around the space?

A hub-and-spoke approach to spreading out information.

Movable "thought bubble" units.
Provocation on one side visitor response on the other?

Spreading out information with a map motif.

LISTEN UP!

Could we engage other senses (like hearing) in information-dense exhibits?

Historic figures speak.

Listen Up! Text and sound.

LOOK UP!

How can we use all the space to have visitors look for information in unexpected ways and places?

Cubes -- look up and all around to approach text/images in non-linear ways.

Changing the space to change visitor expectations.

Look up -- and around!

EXCHANGE

Are there ways to exchange information by encouraging communication between visitors and the museum or interchange between visitors?  How can visitors change the information or the physical exhibit elements?

Exchanging information through flash drives.

Color-coded talk tubes to discuss different subjects?

Visitor-changeable low-tech data display

Hopefully, this ExhibiTricks post has given you some inspiration to scribble outside the (time)lines a bit.

Do you have some other ideas or images/links to share that don't follow the typical timeline?  Let us know in the "Comments" section below!

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Museum Super Bowl Day?

Super Bowl Sunday will be a great day to visit your local museum --- because it will be even quieter than usual. 

Why are so many people, even folks who don't normally follow football, more rabidly enthusiastic about watching the "Big Game" or attending a local Super Bowl event, than visiting your museum?
Have you ever seen someone outside a museum scalping tickets to get inside?  

I'd say one possible answer lies in finding the difference between a "fan" and a "casual visitor."   Fans wear logo gear all year long and have no compunction in excitedly telling total strangers how great their team is.  The National Football league is, as recent news reports have detailed, even going after a traditionally neglected demographic, women 18 to 49, with great success.

So how can museums create more "fans" and expand their demographic reach as well?  

Places like The City Museum in St. Louis have set out to become a gathering spot for their local communities and have become open to all sorts of fun ideas that are edgy enough to attract a wide, and enthusiastic audience of repeat visitors who definitely become City Museum fans.

Of course all this talk of creating "museum fans" is pointless if your museum isn't really fan-worthy.  Is your admissions procedure torture?  Do you create core exhibits and attractions that are worth revisiting, or do you depend on the hucksterism of events that are only vaguely related to your museum's mission and purpose?  What are the obstacles that prevent your visitors from becoming fans?

Let's see if we can create more museum fans.   

GO MUSEUMS!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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