ExhibiTricks: A Museum/Exhibit/Design Blog: exhibit design inspiration

Showing posts with label exhibit design inspiration. Show all posts

Saturday, October 5, 2024

Museum/Exhibit/Design Inspiration: Real-Time Data Sites

In addition to being a perfect blend of science, art, and technology, real-time data websites provide a soothing thrum of information that I find mesmerizing and relaxing. These sites can also inspire great museum/exhibit/design ideas.

Some of my favorite real-time data sites are listed below:

Wind Map gives a real-time visualization of wind speeds in the U.S. It's like a giant video infographic! The Earth website pictured at the top of this post offers a more three-dimensional view of wind around the entire globe.

While you monitor the skies, check out planefinder.net, a site that allows you to locate commercial aircraft during their flights.

Returning to Earth, you can track tectonic activity by seeing the geographic locations of active earthquakes and volcanoes at this site or view NOAA satellite data, including infrared, visible light, and water vapor views.

Finishing up on the terrestrial side, EarthCam is a website that lets you easily choose and view real-time webcam feeds from exciting places worldwide.

I'll finish out this post with a favorite digital "eye candy" site. Google Trends Hot Searches gives you a constantly scrolling feed of current trending searches from the popular search site.

I hope clicking on these sites inspires you and brings you enjoyment! Did we miss any of your favorite real-time data sites? How have you used real-time data sites in your exhibitions?

Let us know in the "Comments" section below!

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.

Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

If you enjoy the blog, you can help keep it free to read and free from ads by supporting ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Monday, December 6, 2021

Exhibit Design Inspiration -- Literary Clock

Maker (and manager of the electronics workshop at the Royal Academy for Arts) Jaap Meijers released this Instructable that shows how to repurpose an old e-reader into a very special type of clock -- a Literary Clock!

What is a "Literary Clock" you might ask? It's a device that tells the time by quoting "timely" passages from literary works. The "literary time" updates every minute, so for instance at 9:23 in the evening, it will read:

My father met me at the station, the dog jumped up to meet me, missed, and nearly fell in front of the 9:23 pm Birmingham express.

This is an incredibly inventive concept, and I kinda want to see one in every library. If you don't have an old e-reader handy, you can still use this Web-based version called "Literature Clock" that was developed by Johannes Enevoldsen, inspired by Jaap Meijers' original idea.

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Design Inspiration: Anonymouse

Anonymouse is an anonymous Swedish artist collective that builds mouse-themed miniature buildings and displays them in public.

Anonymouse posts pictures of their work on Instagram, like the ones featured in this post.

I especially liked "Ricotta Records" and all the miniature mouse-themed record albums and posters inside.

Ricotta Records exterior

"Amy Winemouse" record album from Ricotta Records

How can we inject more fun surprises like these mouse houses inside and outside our museums?

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Design Inspiration: Real-Time Data Sites

I love real-time data visualization websites! In addition to being a perfect blend of science, art, and technology, the web-sights provide a soothing thrum of information that I find mesmerizing and relaxing. I also think these sites are great inspirations for museum/exhibit/design ideas.

Some of my favorite real-time data sites are listed below:

Wind Map gives a real-time visualization of wind speeds in the U.S. It's like a giant video infographic! A more three-dimensional view of wind around the entire globe is available on the earth website (pictured at the top of this post.)

Line of Sight provides a way for you to track satellites and other human-created space materials flying over your current location.

While you are up in the air, check out planefinder.net a site that lets you pick out the location of commercial aircraft during their flights.

Coming back to Earth, you can track tectonic activity by seeing the geographic locations of active earthquakes and volcanoes at this site, or view National Weather Service satellite data, including infrared, visible light, and water vapor views.

Finishing up on the terrestrial side, EarthCam is a website that lets you easily choose and view real-time webcam feeds from interesting places around the world.

I'll finish out this post with a digital "eye candy" site. Google Trends Hot Searches gives you a constantly scrolling feed of current trending searches on their popular search site.

I hope clicking on these sites gives you some inspiration and enjoyment! Did we miss any of your favorite real-time data sites? Let us know about them in the "Comments" section below!

Sunday, March 14, 2021

Design Toolbox: Get the Hook!

My wife recently asked me to place a hook in our back hall so she could hang up a special mop that picks up dog hair from our hardwood and tile floors.

While there were a number of hooks I could have chosen from my workshop, I enjoyed picking out the rubbery dog tail wall hook shown at the top of this post. Why? Well a combination of function and whimsy, I suppose -- combined with a visual cue that tells you something about the tool hanging there.

Anyway, this household chore, and my recent post about different types of tape, made me want to delve into a visual exploration of different types and styles of hooks -- mainly wall hooks. Since hooks often show up in both the public spaces inside museums (think coat rooms) and museum exhibition areas (hanging tools in Maker Spaces or smocks inside water exhibitions, for example) I thought I'd share some hooks I particularly like to provide some museum/exhibit/design inspiration.

The name of each hook below is a clickable link that brings you to a place where you can purchase each particular item -- along with a picture and brief description.

BÄSTIS Hook

The classic IKEA "dog tail" wall hook. Funny, relatively cheap, and functional. Who could also ask for more? (Also available from Amazon**)

Sparrow Wall Hooks

Continuing with the animal theme, these sparrow-shaped hooks would be a great addition to a Nature Center or Natural History museum.

Toughooks

Toughooks are affordable unbreakable plastic backpack and coat hooks. The manufacturer is so sure you can't break them, that they guarantee these hooks for life.

Shelfology Hooks and Hangers

The Shelfology website shows some elegant (if a little pricy) hooks. I especially like the powder-coated steel Popsicle wall hook (pictured below) which comes in about 30 different colors, as well as the Doohooky wall hook.

3M Command™ Hooks

There are many types of 3M Command™ hooks and they are all designed to hold strongly on a variety of indoor surfaces, but leave no sticky adhesive behind.

SKUGGIS Bamboo Hooks

Another inexpensive, minimalist winner from IKEA. Simple, but does the job.

Piano Keyboard Movable Hooks

I love this clever design where each black "key" on the piano keyboard can flip down to form a hook.

Sugatsune TL-40 Stainless Steel Hook

Another minimalist design. Sometimes you just need a simple stainless steel screw-in hook at a great price, and this is it.

Umbra Buddy Wall Hooks

When a design project has you climbing the walls, you might want to specify these whimsical wall hooks -- especially for a Children's Museum or other child-centered project.

Thanks for hanging in through this whole post! I hope some of these items hooked you enough to provide you inspiration for future projects. Have some other favorite hook suggestions to share? Tell us about them in the "COMMENTS" section below!

(** PLEASE NOTE: Some Amazon links may provide the author a small commission with no additional costs for the purchaser.)

Monday, December 28, 2020

Finding Diamonds

As 2020 draws to a close, I keep thinking about the quote attributed to Thomas Carlyle:

"No pressure, no diamonds."

This past year was undoubtedly filled with stresses and pressures, but I will still take some "diamonds" (perhaps some still in the rough) with me into 2021.

Here are some ideas and projects (with links) drawn from this past year's blog posts that have stuck with me:

Motoi Yamamoto's "Saltworks" It's always fascinating to me how humble materials (like salt) can often yield works of great beauty and elegance.

Finding Inspiration Outside (While Trapped Inside) I found much solace, and much to appreciate, in the outdoors this year.

Reading Recommendations Looking for and finding new ideas and inspiration in a wide range of books ...

Pandemic Diversions There were lots of great things to find streaming online and on TV, too.

"Feets-On" Museums? It was written as a tongue-in-cheek response to the backward notion of "touchless museums" but there's still something there, not least of which the accessibility piece ...

And last, but not least, my "Pandemic Project" -- the Museum FAQ Conversations on YouTube with museum colleagues from all around the world. Worth another look and listen, if I do say so myself. And COMING IN 2021 -- Museum FAQ 2.0! Let me know about a topic or person (including yourself!) that I should include in the next batch of Museum FAQ videos.

Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

If you enjoy the blog, you can help keep it free to read and free from ads by supporting ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Design Inspiration: Building with Light and Color

Throughout time, artists, architects, and even exhibit designers have created opportunities for people to play with light and color.

A beautiful example of this is Sainte-Chapelle, the royal chapel completed in the year 1248 in Paris.

It is amazing to step inside the chapel surrounded by multi-story stained-glass windows. The light and color shifts and changes as you move around inside the space. In some ways, it feels like you are actually inside a stained-glass window!

A more modern take on employing light and color in architecture is artist Olafur Eliasson's installation called Your rainbow panorama.

Situated on top of the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum art museum in Aarhus, Denmark, Your rainbow panorama invites you to experience the familiar (a city skyline) in unfamiliar ways. Olafur Eliasson's creation consists of a 150-meter-long and three meter-wide circular walkway in glass in all the colors of the spectrum. Your rainbow panorama is mounted on slender columns 3.5 meters above the roof of ARoS with a diameter of 52 meters.

Here's a quote from Eliasson about this work:

“Your rainbow panorama establishes a dialogue with the existing architecture and reinforces what was already there, that is to say the view across the city. I have created a space that can almost be said to erase the boundary between inside and outside – a place where you become a little uncertain as to whether you have stepped into a work of art or into part of the museum. This uncertainty is important to me, as it encourages people to think and sense beyond the limits within which they are accustomed to function.”

Architect Keiichiro Sako takes the playful aspects of light and color into the design of this kindergarten building in China.

The lucky students are completely surrounded by rainbow colors -- on the stairs, in windows, and inside their classroom spaces!

Of course, the most fun is building and playing with light and color yourself. For that purpose, I'd suggest getting some colorful, translucent Magna-Tiles (You can get them here at Amazon, or at other online stores.) I hope your days ahead are filled with light and color!

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.

Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

If you enjoy the blog, you can help keep it free to read by supporting ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Sunday, July 22, 2018

Museum/Exhibit/Design Inspiration: Poetic Kinetics

Poetic Kinetics transforms public spaces with their kinetic art.

The group, based in Los Angeles, has created site-specific work all around the world. I'll call out a few exceptional pieces that stood out for me, but you should really click on over to the Poetic Kinetics website and YouTube channel to get a broader sense of their work.

Liquid Shard, pictured at the top of this post and in the video embedded below, was a large-scale sculpture made out of holographic mylar and monofilament installed across Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles. The wind and air currents in the square cause the piece's two layers to rise and fall from 15 feet off the ground to 115 feet in the air.

Escape Velocity, a giant mobile Astronaut amazed fans and performers during the Coachella Music and Arts Festival, hovering over concertgoers and interacting with them as they passed by. Radio-controlled animatronics gave the Astronaut the ability to articulate life-like gestures, such as peace and thumbs up signs. Video projection mapping allowed participants to have their face projected into the helmet visor as well as have their name appear on the suit’s nametag. There's a cool YouTube video of the creation and installation of the Astronaut here.

Nimbus is an installation that transforms a transitional space into a performance site. The installation acts as a timepiece for Walt Disney Concert Hall as Rand Steiger’s commissioned music changes over the course of the day, alternating between computer generated musical atmospheres and compositions built from material recorded by soloists from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. These pieces, spatially distributed over 32 speakers, alternate with periods of silence interrupted by briefly related sounds triggered by motion sensors.

Let the Poetic Kinetics website and YouTube channel inspire you to think of new ways to transform the public spaces around you and your museum!

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Thursday, January 25, 2018

Museum Exhibit Design Inspiration: Glow-In-The-Dark Thread!

I love finding interesting exhibit supplies that show up in unexpected places. While working on a recent exhibit design project, I went in search of different types of glow-in-the-dark materials and found Sublime Stitching in Austin, Texas.

If you scroll to the bottom of the handy Tools Section of the Sublime Stitching website you will find the finely braided glow in the dark thread in a palette of five colors to fill all your fiber and phosphorescent needs. (And now you get twice as much tread per spool!)

Several of the other tools highlighted in this section of the Sublime Stitching website, while originally intended for sewing and stitching purposes, will work well for your next prototyping or exhibition project as well.

What unexpected exhibit development resources do you use?

Share your finds in the Comments Section below!

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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Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Museum + Exhibit + Design Inspiration: Cavalry 360°

Architecture studio NEON created a site-specific installation called Cavalry 360° at the Chesters Roman Fort, in the north of England. The piece (pictured at the top of this post and in the YouTube video at the end) is a large circle in which visitors can stand and hear the simulated sound of 500 cavalry horses galloping, as a reminder of the armies stationed at Hadrian's Wall in the 2nd century.

One thing I especially like about the sculpture is that it uses wind energy to function. Comprised of 32 wind turbines, each of which has three arms with cups to catch the wind and power hundreds of "mini beaters," to create the sound of equine hoofs in a constantly changing pattern. The beaters are arranged to mimic a "Turma," a term in Latin term that refers to a Byzantine cavalry group of 30 horses. Visitors experience the beaters working at differing speeds as the wind rises and falls – and hear the sounds of horses galloping or trotting.

English Heritage commissioned Cavalry 360° in the hopes that the unique kinetic piece, placed in the remarkable historic setting along Hadrian’s Wall, will be both thought-provoking and fun. It is designed to connect the viewer with the environment, to invite people to look through the work at the landscape beyond, and to pick up the sound on the wind.

Mark Nixon, who owns NEON, explained that the installation is meant to make people consider the Roman conquerors who rode over the land almost 2,000 years ago:

"This was an incredibly ambitious and challenging brief that called for a project that would retell the story of the Chester’s Cavalry in a way that would be engaging and exciting as well as drawing a new audience to the fort. The challenge of describing something that was no longer physically there, the Cavalry - and acknowledging the way the horse changed mankind’s relationship to the landscape were key to our approach for the commission. Like written fiction, we were excited to offer a half description of the subject as a means of evoking the imagination of the viewer to fill in the gaps. The horse as a creature evokes a wide range of visual and audial motifs that gave us a rich palette from which to draw on.”

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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Monday, August 28, 2017

Exhibit Design Inspiration: Physics Footnotes

The fine folks at the Physics Footnotes website have assembled a growing gallery of short videos (GIFs) and links to all sorts of amazing phenomena with a physics bent.

If you click over to the Physics Footnotes Gallery you discover how to make an Invisibility Cloak:

or see a whale make a rainbow with its blowhole:

Many of the videos present ideas that could easily be adapted to demonstrations or interactive exhibits and are often linked to longer YouTube videos or related websites.

Since each GIF is short, it is easy to quickly dip in and out of the Physics Footnotes Gallery offerings.

Definitely worth a quick click to check out!

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.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Design Inspiration: Rainbow Wave GBC

I love projects that use simple, familiar materials to create surprising and wonderful effects.

And Berthil van Beek's "Rainbow Wave GBC" made of Legos certainly meets that creative standard! (GBC stands for Great Ball Contraption. That specification includes the balls themselves --- they have to be tiny soccer balls or basketballs. A machine built according to the GBC standard can be connected to other GBCs to make large connected displays.)

You can see the Rainbow Wave GBC in action by viewing the video at the top of this post or by following this link.

And if you need additional inspiration to pull out some Legos, click on over to Mr. van Beek's YouTube and Flickr pages to see more of his clever contraptions.

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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Saturday, June 10, 2017

Design Inspiration: "Nature's Reflection"

I love the elegantly executed installation "Nature's Reflection" by Brooklyn-based brothers and artists ICY and SOT.

Like many great design ideas, Nature's Reflection seems quite obvious after you see it, yet still creates a quite powerful and thought-provoking impression.

You can find out more about the entire range of ICY and SOT's work by clicking over to their website or Instagram account.

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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Saturday, March 4, 2017

Design Inspiration: Paddy Bloomer

Paddy Bloomer is an artist inventor explorer and plumber based in Belfast.

He has done projects in sewers and derelict factory chimneys, alleyways, and lamp posts.

He has a knack for making interesting installations that either explode or are slightly dangerous (as you can see in the videos above and below.)

It's really cool stuff worth checking out on his website or YouTube channel.

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.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Add "Office Supply Ninja" to Your Exhibit Prototyping Resume

Thomas Edison said, "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." His reference was to inventing, but he could have also been speaking about prototyping.

To me, prototyping is an iterative process that uses simple materials to help you answer questions about the physical aspects of your exhibit components (even labels!) early on in the development process.

As I mentioned in a previous post, it's always a bit discouraging to hear museum folks say "we just don't have the time/the money/the space/the materials to do prototyping ..." (By then I'm usually thinking "So how is setting an ill-conceived or malfunctioning exhibit component into your museum, because you didn't prototype, saving time or money?" But I digress...)

Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine anyone fabricating an exhibit component without trying out a quick-and-dirty version first. So in today's post I thought I'd lay out the simple steps I use to show how quickly and inexpensively prototyping can be integrated into the beginning of any exhibit development process, and how you too can become an Office Supply Ninja!

STEP ONE: Figure out what you want to find out.

In this case, a client wanted me to come up with an interactive version of a "Food Web" (the complex interrelationship of organisms in a particular environment, showing, basically, what eats what.) We brainstormed a number of approaches (magnet board, touch screen computer) but finally settled on the notion of allowing visitors to construct a "Food Web Mobile" with the elements being the various organisms found (in this particular case) in a mangrove swamp. The client was also able to provide me with a flow chart showing the relationships between organisms and a floor plan of the area where the final exhibit will be installed.

The two initial things I wanted to test or find out about from my prototype were:

1) Did people "get" the idea conceptually? That is, did they understand the relationships and analogies between the Food Web Mobile and the actual organisms in the swamp?

2) Could they easily create different sorts of physical arrangements with the mobile that were interesting and accurate?

STEP TWO: Get out your junk!

As in the Edison quote above, it helps to have a good supply of "bits and bobs" around to prototype with. You might not have the same sorts of junk that I've gathered up over years in the museum exhibit racket, but everyone should have access to basic office supplies (stuff like paper, tape, markers, index cards, scissors, etc.) And really that's all you need to start assembling prototypes. (The imagination part is important, too.)

STEP THREE: Start playing around with the pieces ...

Before I even start assembling a complete rough mechanism or system I like to gather all the parts together and see if I like how they work with each other. In the case of the Food Web Mobile prototype, I used colored file folders to represent different levels of organisms. I initially made each color/level out of the same size pieces, but then I changed to having each color be a different size. Finally, I used a hole punch to make the holes, and bent paper clips to serves as the hooks that would allow users to connect the pieces/organisms in different ways.

STEP FOUR: Assemble, then iterate, iterate, iterate!

This is the part of the prototyping process that requires other people beside yourself. Let your kids, your co-workers, your significant other, whoever (as long as it's somebody beside yourself) try out your idea. Obviously the closer your "testers" are to the expected demographic inside the museum, the better --- ideally I like to prototype somewhere inside the museum itself.

Resist the urge to explain or over-explain your prototype. Just watch what people do (or don't do!) with the exhibit component(s). Take lots of notes/pictures/video. Then take a break to change your prototype based on what you've observed and heard, and try it out again. That's called iteration.

In this case, I saw right away that the mobile spun and balanced in interesting ways, but that meant that the labels would need to be printed on both sides of the pieces. Fortunately, my three "in-house testers" (ages 6, 11, and 13) seemed to "get" the concept of "Food Webs" embedded into the Mobile interactive, and started coming up with interesting physical variations on their own.

For example, I initially imagined people would just try to create "balanced" arrangements of pieces on the Mobile. But, as you can see below, the prototype testers enjoyed making "unbalanced" arrangements as well (which is fine, and makes sense conceptually as well.) Also, we discovered that people realized that they could hang more than one "organism piece" on the lower hooks (which was also fine, and also made sense conceptually.)

STEP FIVE: Figure out what's next ... even if it's the trash can!

Do you need to change the label, or some physical arrangement of your prototype? Using simple, inexpensive materials makes that easy.

Do you just need to junk this prototype idea? Using simple, inexpensive materials makes it easier to move on to a new idea, too. (Much more easily than if you had spent weeks crafting and assembling something out of expensive materials from your workshop...) It's not too surprising to see people really struggle to let a bad exhibit idea go, especially if they've spent several weeks putting it together. Quick and cheap should be your watchwords early on in the prototyping process.

In this case, I sent photos of the paper clip prototype and a short video showing people using the Food Web Mobile to the client as a "proof of concept." They were quite pleased, and so now I will make a second-level prototype using materials more like those I expect to use in the "final" exhibit (which I'll update in a future post.) Even so, I will still repeat the steps above of gathering materials, assembling pieces, and iterating through different versions with visitors.

I hope you'll give this "office supply ninja" version of exhibit prototyping a try for your next project!

If you do, send me an email and I'd be happy to show off the results of ExhibiTricks readers prototyping efforts.

ExhibiTricks: A Museum/Exhibit/Design Blog