Stick to it! A resource list of tapes for designers.

Tape is one of those things that you often use, but rarely think about.

So here's a listing of a variety of speciality tapes for your creative design toolbox!  Just click on the title link above each tape description to go to a web page to purchase that tape or for more info.


3M SOLAS Tape
"SOLAS" stands for "Safety Of Life At Sea" and it is super-durable reflective tape that was designed originally to be used by the Coast Guard. It's strong. It's shiny. What more could you want? It may also be useful outside your exhibit pursuits on bikes, backpacks, or cars.


Gaffer's Tape
If you think duct tape is useful, try Gaffer's tape. You can think of Gaffer's Tape as duct tape without the sticky residue. It's the standard tape in the film and theater worlds. Best of all, the adhesive is designed to not rip off paint. You can leave Gaffer's tape stuck to a wall for days, and then remove it without tearing up the wall surface or leaving sticky gunk behind.


Blue Painter's Tape
The "blue masking tape" is great because it doesn't mar or mess up walls.  Great for painting/masking of course, but also super when putting together large paper or cardboard prototypes that need to interface with walls, floors, or windows.

Vypar X-Treme Tape
X-treme tape is a non-adhesive, self-bonding wrap. It's not really "tape" since it's not sticky. But it really grips and wraps around wet stuff or slimy stuff --- think water exhibits, hoses, bubble exhibits, etc. Once it's in place -- it is NOT coming off! You just pull on the tape and it fuses to itself under tension. As a bonus it comes in a range of colors as well.



Here are two variations on good old reliable duct tape:

Gorilla Tape
Gorilla Tape is like regular duct tape on steroids. Sure, it's much stickier, but it also adheres to uneven/rough surfaces.


Clear Duct Tape
From the creative minds of 3M comes "clear "duct tape! It is less noticeable than standard duct tape, but more importantly, 3M claims it lasts 6 times longer than the standard variety, having been engineered for extreme temperatures and UV exposure.




Vet Wrap
A "self-clinging" wrapping material that does not require tight compression.


Instant-bonding Glue Dots
Adhesive "dots" that require no drying time, are clean and easy to use, and work on a variety of materials. Glue Dots bond instantly to any surface.


Terrifically Tacky Tape
This is double-sided craft tape with red liner that is super strong. (The bond actually increases after the first 24 hours it is applied.)  This is the same kind of ultra-thin, very sticky tape as "3M 4910 VHB Tape" but TT tape comes in shorter-length rolls so it is less expensive.


EMPTY EMPTY and PACKED PACKED tape rolls from Benchmark.
Use on crates for traveling exhibitions so you don't mix 'em up!
(Benchmark sells lots of other interesting exhibit and mount-making supplies as well.)


3M Dual Lock Reclosable Fastener System
Clear self-mating reclosable fastener with clear acrylic adhesive on the back. This is the "mushroom" topped style, rather than hook and loop, so it fastens to itself and doesn't collect fuzz like the "hook" half of velcro.


Colored Plastic Vinyl Floor Marking Tape
Great for outlining areas on floors or walls.  These tapes come from Identi-Tape and are highly adhesive and resistant to water, oil, fungus and chemicals, have a semi-gloss finish, and can be written on with permanent markers.


1/4"-wide Colored Plastic Vinyl Tape
Also from Identi-Tape, these 6-mil vinyl adhesive tapes are available in a 14 colors plus clear in 36-yard long rolls. These tapes are ideal for constructing lines and tables on dry erase boards, identification of small tools, decorative striping, etc.


Hugo's Amazing Tape
The cool thing about Hugo's Amazing Tape is that it only sticks to itself.  This makes it great for things that need to be wrapped and re-wrapped, or opened and closed, on a regular basis.  Hugo's tape can also be used as a temporary clamp or stabilizer for irregularly-shaped materials as well.


And that also wraps up this post about tape!  Do you have any favorite tapes that we've missed here? Leave us the info in the Comments Section below!



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Looking for some additional FREE exhibit resources?  Check out the POW! website.

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Looking Outside: An Interview With George Mayer

George Mayer is the Vice President - Business Development for Kubik Maltbie, Inc., a 54 year old fabricator of museum exhibits based in Mount Laurel, NJ.

George began his career “on the boards” designing commercial interiors, architectural signage and commercial exhibits. For the past 29 years he has been involved in developing new business in the museum sector. He began his work at Maltbie in 1986, and left in 2002 to start up a museum business at Art Guild, Inc.  He returned to Maltbie (now Kubik Maltbie) in 2010. His list of major projects includes: Nauticus: The National Maritime Center, Fort Discovery National Science Center, and Gettysburg National Military Park and Visitor Center, but there are many more projects of a smaller scale that are just as significant.

He is a sometimes writer, sometimes conference speaker, and sometimes guitar player, but he is consistently passionate about developing new business and building successful, sustainable museum projects.

We are happy George was able to share his thoughts in this interview for ExhibiTricks.


What’s your educational background? I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ.  My degree is in theatrical Scenic and Lighting Design. What that means (and any person ever associated with the theater life know this) is that I earned my degree by working nights and weekends fueled by coffee and Big Macs. You know how when you’re so enthralled by something that you can’t stay away from it? That was me in theater.  A great hands-on education that somehow resulted in a degree with honors.  


What got you interested in Museums?   I’ve been building things since I was a kid – forts, tunnels, log cabins, airplane models, miniature stage sets. Those interests led me to theater. During my later college years, I woke up one morning and realized how tough it was going to be to make a living in the theater, so I shifted my focus to exhibits.

I started my career as a designer of commercial interiors and trade show exhibits at first. I found that work to be quite unfulfilling, so I shifted my focus to museums. Museum exhibitions are a lot like sets – great design, cool lighting, and an audience (visitors). But museum exhibits are better than stage sets, because, aside from having achieved something artistic and creative, and three-dimensional, the educational component has the potential to make the world a better place by raising up people's awareness of the world around them.


What are the changes you see in how museums manage projects now compared to several years ago?  I’d like to say that I like the trend that I see, but it seems that almost every project that we see now is on such a short deadline that they are becoming harder to do.  When I first started in the fabrication of museum exhibits, most projects were on very do-able schedules, and I wonder if now there’s an inference drawn from the fact that we can send a document to someone in a millisecond and that that translates into doing their project in a millisecond.



What prompted you to help form Praxis Museum Projects Group?  Praxis began as a small business networking group about 10 years ago. There were four of us then, all working in the production or technical side of the museum exhibit business. We’d get together over lunch or dinner and shoot the breeze about the state of the industry, upcoming project opportunities, and other information.

During AAM in Seattle last year, I approached the others with the idea that we should consider making our group more of a real “thing”...a group that could offer a prospective client a full range of project services, just add design. We all agreed, and set about approaching people in other specialties who we already knew, or who we knew to be among the best at what they do.  After some months of defining what the group would do and be, we formed Praxis Museum Projects Group.

We’re still an informal entity, we don’t work exclusively with one another, but we do exchange information on best practices, on what our individual specialties are, on upcoming projects, etc. Our key watch-phrase is “where and when appropriate”, meaning that no one has to share trade secrets or betray a NDA in order to be in the group. Just bring your best game and contribute something that elevates the conversation about our business. For me, I like to have people to bounce ideas off of and Praxis is some of those people.


Tell us a little bit about how your “non-museum” skills/activities inform your exhibit fabrication work?  I’m always on the look-out for new ways of doing things, particularly as the exhibit world becomes more accessible and interactive. I find them in books, in hardware stores, in my grandkids toys (usually pretty engaging and “bullet proof”).


What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out about the intersection between movement and museums. I believe that museums themselves are the best resource that we can look to. We spend so much time looking at screens – for learning, for information gathering, for socializing. As professionals in the museum world, we have access to information that most people don’t.  But really, I would tend to look outside of our industry, and I would recommend that to anyone seeking any kind of information about anything – look outside, look away from what you do. Take in other information and process it and find ways to apply it to your own circumstances/situation.



What are the ways you think about making your projects accessible to the widest range of visitors?  Since we are not designers, we are usually in response mode. We build what others have designed or dreamed up. The good news is that we often have input into the technical engineering and final detailing of those dreams, so to a large extent some of the detailing and engineering decisions have a direct impact on issues such as longevity, durability, safety, and accessibility.  


What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?  I don’t know what it WILL be, but I can say what I think would be great – that is finding better ways to get kids (and other human people) really engaged in their museum visits. Maker Spaces are a wonderful step in that direction, but to truly BE the scientist, or to BE the historian, or to BE the artist by offering more immersive and interactive environments and activities that provide a whole experience is what I’d like to have a part in creating.


What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?  Currently my favorite exhibition is one that we built. It’s the Behring Hall of Mammals at the National Museum of Natural History in DC. The designer (Reich + Petch) did such an extraordinary job of designing a contemporary, clean approach to viewing large mammals. It’s been open for 6 or 7 years and I haven’t seen anything like it anywhere else.

My next favorite is the First Division Museum at Cantigny in Wheaton, IL. The exhibits tell the story of the Army’s First Infantry Division in strikingly realistic and theatrical detail.  I was so impressed by the level of detail, the immersion into trenches and foxholes – it awakened the “theater” in me.


Can you talk a little about some of your current projects?  We are so fortunate right now to be working on a number of interesting projects, both domestically and overseas.

The “My Body” gallery at the Konya Science Center (Konya, Turkey) is a 5,000 square foot exhibition designed by LSC Experience Services and is about to ship and will be completed in early May.  We’re also working with Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership on the exhibits for Muzeiko – The Children’s Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria that will open this summer and includes about 15,000 SF of exhibits.

We are just about to open the North Wing Expansion at the Corning Museum of Glass, a contemporary glass gallery. And, we are just starting a small project in Northern Virginia – the Children’s Science Center LAB designed by Alchemy Studio. The LAB is being fit-out in a former Pizzeria Uno in the Fair Oaks Mall, Fairfax, VA, and is a kind of preview space for what CSC plans to build in the future. The DoSeum (San Antonio children’s Museum) designed by Argyle Design is in the final stages of installation and opens in June.


If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?
I already have the outline and conceptual design for it, but money is not the object. The object is (drumroll please) …politics!  It’s a very large-scale traveling exhibition called The Beatles Anthology Experience! – 25,000 square feet of Beatles history with immersive environments and static artifact cases, but also interactive exhibits that teach about creativity, language (song writing), math (music is math), and tenacity.

Here’s some background: Over a period beginning in 1996, Apple Corps, Limited, the company that The Beatles formed in the late 60's, began releasing the Anthology series of media - first the CD's, then the DVD's, and finally the book in 2000. It struck me that, while this triad of media is fabulous, it is all very passive…listen, watch, or read.  There is no interaction, no engagement, and what it needs in order for Anthology to be a complete experience for fans was The Beatles brought to "life" and in three dimensions; an immersive environment that takes visitors on a complete journey through The Beatles' history from July 1957 when John Lennon met Paul McCartney at a church fair, through their last live performance on the roof-top of their Saville Row building in London. Nothing could have made any more sense as a name than The Beatles Anthology Experience!...the fourth part in a series of well-produced, spectacularly popular media by the band that is still the most popular act in history.

Despite having assembled a great creative team, access to funding, support from Apple Corps and thumbs-up meetings with Paul, Yoko, and Olivia Harrison, the project is…..sleeping, hence the dream.



Thanks George --- I hope we all get to visit your Beatles exhibition some day!  In the meantime, you can find out more about some of George's work at the Kubik Maltbie website or at the Praxis Museum Projects Group website.  (Full disclosure: I'm also a member of the Praxis Group.)



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Hidden Tech and Stealth Evaluation?

I'm hoping ExhibiTricks readers might provide some good examples of two interesting types of exhibit/design challenges:


• "Hidden" Tech: by which I mean exhibit components that make clever use of technology by making it integral to the design and essentially invisible to the user.  The exact opposite of the "shiny new toy" syndrome where touch screens (or tablets, or iPads, or projection surfaces) are so out front that it looks like a Best Buy store.


• "Stealth" Evaluation: moving away from people with clipboards (or the digital equivalents) to looking for exhibit design aspects that provide both quantitative and qualitative data about visitor experiences and content acquisition.  An example (pictured above) is the "Would you go to Mars?" digital counter gates. A matching set of gates is placed at both the entrance and exit of the Ontario Science Centre's Facing Mars traveling exhibition. Visitors (and museum staff) can see how opinions might be different before (and after) finding out more details about potential space missions to Mars inside the exhibition.

What are some of your favorite examples of hidden tech and stealth evaluation?  Post your examples (with links to websites and/or images if possible) in the "Comments" section below, or send me an email with more info.


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Putting Visitors First: An Interview with Beth Redmond-Jones

Beth (at far right) with her family in Teton National Park

Since 1988, Beth Redmond-Jones has developed, designed, and project managed exhibitions for museums, interpretive centers, zoos, and aquariums, including Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Bay Area Discovery Museum, the Alaska SeaLife Center, Exploratorium, California Science Center, National Park Service, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Her expertise lies in creating multi-layered visitor experiences that include graphics, text, low and high-tech interactives, live animals, media, theater, and immersive exhibit elements. Her in-house experience includes Director of Exhibits at the Aquarium of the Pacific, Assistant to the Director of Public Programs at the Exploratorium, and Assistant Registrar at the Tucson Museum of Art.   

Beth was kind enough to answer a few questions for ExhibiTricks readers:

What’s your educational background?

I have an MA in Museum Studies from John F. Kennedy University and a BA in Art History with a double minor in studio art and biology from University of New Hampshire. I grew up in a family of architects and spent a good part of my childhood watching (and helping) my family flip houses. The design and construction aspects I feel have helped me to become a better conceptual designer, and to consider all aspects of how an exhibit could work and create an effective environment.

What got you interested in Museums?

My mom and dad were really good about taking me to museums and zoos when I was a kid. My favorites were the Cincinnati Zoo and seeing the white Bengal tigers. The other was the Natural History Museum in Cincinnati. They had this amazing immersive experience where you walked through a cave, and there was a waterfall, and it was wet and cold. I was transformed into a spelunker. I would go through it multiple times during each visit. I was also fascinated by the museum's taxidermied specimens. They were amazing.

Then, when I was seven, my mom told me we were going to have lunch with a friend of hers at the Cincinnati Art Museum. At that point in time, art museums were boring to me, and the thought of having lunch with her and one of her friends at a boring museum was "a total drag" (one of my favorite expressions when I was seven.) What she didn't tell me was that her friend, Millard F. Rogers Jr., was the Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum, who ended up serving as Director for 20 years.

Well, that lunch began my love of museums. Millard took me behind the scenes to show me collection storage and when we walked in, staff were opening a crate to reveal a Greek sculpture (I hated Greek sculpture then, but it was still a cool thing to watch) and they began discussing how to remove it from the crate and how it was going to be displayed. Seeing that sculpture in its crate, and listening to their conversation, was all it took. I was hooked.

Given your varied background, is your approach to exhibition development different in the context of different museum types?   No, not at all. Visitors always come first. Working for Kathy McLean for so long taught me the importance of putting visitors first: determining their base line knowledge of a subject, their assumptions, and their misconceptions, then evaluating concepts throughout the process.

The challenge I sometime find with the exhibition development process, however, is getting the rest of the team on board of talking with and listening to what visitors have to say all through the process. Some of my past clients did not have experience working with and including visitors in the exhibition development process, so this has been where I've had to refine my approach—getting the team on board to take visitor input seriously and create an experience that achieves the goals of the team while responding to the needs and interests of their visitors.

I really like the ambiguity of the process. Letting things sit, simmer, percolate, whatever you want to call it. Yet, I know it can frustrate others. Many of the team members I have worked with over the years want to make a decision and call it a day. I think it's important to put ideas on the board, move them around, refine them, keep some, toss others. It's an iterative approach, one that I think creates a better experience.

On occasion, I have used the IDEO method cards which are a fun way to spark new kinds of design conversations with non-designer team members. It has led to some very insightful and fun discussions which led them to come up with some innovative design concepts for exhibits.

Does being a parent inform your exhibit design work?

Definitely. I have two girls and they couldn't be more different from one another, and they are also eight years apart. So their interests, attention level, and desired experiences are really different from one another. They are constantly giving me their input on an exhibition I'm working on, whether I want it or not. But I really love that—they want my exhibitions to be engaging as well.

At various times over the years, both of them have looked at fonts for readability and read labels out loud for understandability. They are often my first level of evaluation. Most recently, my youngest was looking at typefaces and logo treatments for a children's exhibition I’m working on. She picked out problem areas that no one else on the team noticed. It was really helpful.

As a parent, I've also been exposed to experiences that I may not have been exposed to if I hadn't had kids, such as Adventure Playground in Berkeley, CA, or even children's museums. Seeing how kids learn, engage, and behave in a variety of environments has allowed me to think about exhibit experiences that engage that younger audience in a different way.

What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about exhibition development?

The online museum resources I follow on a regular basis are the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME) list-serve and web site, ExhibitFiles, Nina Simon's blog,  Museum 2.0 and of course ExhibiTricks! I also check out IDEO's web site on a regular basis.

Other resources are books and magazines. First and foremost is Kathy McLean's book Planning for People in Museum Exhibitions, Beverly Serrell's book Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach, and Sam Taylor's book Try It! Improving Exhibits Through Formative Evaluation. In my opinion, these are necessary items on any exhibit developers bookshelf.

Other favorites are Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions edited by Kathy McLean and Wendy Pollock, Nina Simon's book The Participatory Museum, and of course, Exhibitionist, the journal published by the NAME, and Curator magazine. I also read non-museum magazines like ID and Wired to see what's going on in design and technology outside museums.

There is one other resource that I have pinned on my wall. I'm not sure where it came from, but I know many exhibit developers who have it above their desks:


What Do I Do?

Visionary: Inspire the process.

Curator: Without the Ph.D. or the years of preparation, but with the pressure for accuracy.


Researcher: Compile background, interview experts.

Secretary: Listen to the Board, listen to the administration.

Thinker: Synthesize all of it to get the main message.

Warrior: Defend the main message.

Whiner: Complain when the main message is being ignored.


Translator: Turn words into a three-dimensional, interactive, exciting exhibit.

Teacher: Educate the designers who are too busy to learn about the content they’re exhibiting.


Evaluator: Speak with visitors.

Advocate: Speak up for visitors.

Project Manager: Make charts, write purchase orders, manage, make it happen.

Therapist: Make sure everyone feels a part of the process, that everyone’s ego is stroked.

Parent: Prevent squabbling from bringing down the house.

Laborer: Actually build the thing.

What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in developing their exhibitions?

1. Use real stuff. Use your collections. Put them in context. Tell your story. Be true to your institution.

2. Talk with your visitors, even informally.

3. Don't be afraid to experiment with new exhibit techniques. Try new ways to engage your visitors. I've seen very simple exhibits that activated the visitor conversations—some exhibit cases, a few good objects, a couple of engaging questions, and post-it notes for visitors to write a response and a wall to post them on.

What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?

Who knows….museums are challenged by changing demographics and the economy. I think museums need to be true to themselves and create passionate experiences that resonate with audiences. We need to be places where people want to go and hang out, create things, and visit with their friends—not be a place to check off a list. Museums need to become an integral part of the community.

What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?

Some of my favorite museums are the American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore, MD), Monterey Bay Aquarium (Monterey, CA), Pittsburgh Children's Museum (Pittsburgh, PA), The City Museum (St. Louis, MO), The Museum of Jurassic Technology (Los Angeles, CA), Minnesota History Center (St. Paul, MN), and the Bob Marley Museum (Kingston, Jamaica).

Can you talk a little about some of your current projects?

I'm currently the project manager and exhibit developer for a new exhibition M is for Museum at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA. This 8,000 square foot exhibition opens October 15, 2011 and is targeted for 5-13 year olds. It is based on the ABCs with each letter representing something the museum does or collects. For example, A is for Artifact, C is for Collect, F is for Fossil, L is for Look, and T is for Taxidermy. It is the first hands-on, kid-centric exhibition the museum has developed. It includes hands-on interactives, multimedia, and hundreds of artifacts and specimens from the museum's collection. We really wanted to focus on breaking down the wall between front-of-house and back-of-house.

One of my other clients is the Utah Museum of Natural History, the Rio Tinto Center. I'm working with them to develop interpretation that calls out the LEED aspects of their new LEED gold building that opens in fall 2011.

If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?

My dream exhibit project would be an exhibition on mental illness or autism. Both of these conditions have had a huge impact on my life. There are so many stigmas and misinformation associated with these conditions, that I would like to create an experience that would allow visitors to have a better understanding of what it's like for an individual to live with these conditions. It would be an opportunity to bust the stigmas and open people's eyes to some of the amazing people and qualities that these conditions create.


Thanks again to Beth for taking the time to share her thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers!

 
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 Automatic 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!)

Free Exhibit Idea: 61 Trees Per Person

NPR recently did a story on the research of Professor Nalini Nadkarni of The Evergreen State College in Washington.

Basically, using satellite data from NASA, Professor Nadkarni was able to calculate that in 2005, there were 400,246,300,201 (more or less) trees on our globe! (You can read about the technical details on the NPR website.)

So how many trees per person are there? Nadkarni looked up the world's human population as of Dec. 31 and found that on that day, we numbered 6,456,789,877 (again, very more or less). Punching the figures into her calculator, she figured that the world supports 61 trees per person.

I think this story and the details about how the NASA data was crunched would make a great exhibit. If someone provides the venue, I'd be happy to work on it with them!

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Exhibit Designer Toolbox: The Sticky Subject Of Tape

Tape is one of those things that you often use, but rarely think about.

For now, I thought I'd highlight some unusual tapes for you to add to your exhibits (and prototyping!) toolkit:

3M SOLAS Tape

"SOLAS" stands for "Safety Of Life At Sea" and it is super-durable reflective tape that was designed originally to be used by the Coast Guard. It's strong. It's shiny. What more could you want? It may also be useful outside your exhibit pursuits on bikes, backpacks, or cars.

Available here



Gaffer's Tape

If you think duct tape is useful, try Gaffer's tape. You can think of Gaffer's Tape as duct tape without the sticky residue. It's the standard tape in the film and theater worlds. Best of all, the adhesive is designed to not rip off paint. You can leave Gaffer's tape stuck to a wall for days, and then remove it without tearing up the wall surface or leaving sticky gunk behind.

Available here



Vypar X-Treme Tape

X-treme tape is a non-adhesive, self-bonding wrap. It's not really "tape" since it's not sticky. But it really grips and wraps around wet stuff or slimy stuff --- think water exhibits, hoses, bubble exhibits, etc. Once it's in place -- it is NOT coming off! You just pull on the tape and it fuses to itself under tension. As a bonus it comes in a range of colors as well.

Available here



And now, two variations on good old reliable duct tape:

Gorilla Tape

Gorilla Tape is like regular duct tape on steroids. Sure, it's much stickier, but it also adheres to uneven/rough surfaces.

Available here


Clear Duct Tape

From the creative minds of 3M comes "clear "duct tape! It is less noticeable than standard duct tape, but more importantly, 3M claims it lasts 6 times longer than the standard variety, having been engineered for extreme temperatures and UV exposure.

Available here


Any discussion of tapes, and especially duct tape, would be incomplete if we didn't mention the annual "Duck" brand duct tape "Stuck At Prom" Scholarship Contest. Duck makes duct tape (a little confusing, I know) and holds an annual contest for couples to create a complete set of prom outfits using duct tape! (You can see one example at the top of this blog posting.) Also check out the completely mind-boggling array of past contest entries at the Duck Tape website.


Have any favorite tapes that we've missed? Leave us the info in a comment below!

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Exhibit Maker's Toolbox: Glow In The Dark String

Sometimes interesting exhibit supplies and 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 their 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!

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 non-traditional exhibit development resources do you use?

Share your finds in the Comments Section below!

Green Exhibit Design: An Interview with Tim McNeil

A short while ago, I asked colleagues if they could recommend a good source for information about "green" (that is, eco-friendly) printers and printing materials suitable for museum exhibitions. While many museums are taking the first steps toward green exhibit design, it was clear that additional information in this regard would be helpful.

Happily, several folks referred me to Tim McNeil, who is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Design, and Director of the Design Museum at the University of California, Davis.

The Design Museum functions as a laboratory for exhibition design, interpretation, and practice. The 2007–08 season of eco-exhibitions at the Design Museum will present a range of work by designers at the forefront of sustainable and green design. McNeil is currently researching green design methods and technological advances that are applicable to exhibition environments. 

Tim was kind enough to answer a few questions for the ExhibiTricks blog as well as providing some resources that should prove useful to anyone interested in exploring the possibilities inherent in green design.



ExhibiTricks: Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to the UC Davis Design Museum?

Tim McNeil: I’ve been working in the museum profession principally as an exhibition designer for nearly 20 years. A good part of that time was as a senior designer at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles where I designed exhibits and gallery spaces for the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The experience at the Getty afforded me the opportunity to participate in the planning and design of two new museums and work with some of the best museum professionals, objects, resources, and interpretive environments in the world. I was also fortunate enough to be at the Getty at the right time. When I arrived in 1992 there was a desperate need for an exhibition design department to help facilitate in-house design solutions with Richard Meier and Partners, architects for the Getty Center. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a new design department from scratch for a museum with resources and major ambitions for the future.

What made the new exhibition design department at the Getty unique was the goal to hire designers who could traverse multiple design disciplines. We weren’t interested in the conventional museum model that pitched design teams working in three dimensions (exhibit designers) with those who work in two dimensions (graphic designers). The Getty’s exhibition design department employs 10 designers with backgrounds in architecture, industrial, interior, and graphic design. Each designer is expected to work on every aspect of an exhibition, from spatial design and display furniture to the exhibit interpretive elements and text, to the printed ephemera and promotional environmental graphics. This approach yields very cohesive design solutions when the conditions are right, relying heavily on cooperation and lack of design ego.

This “multi-disciplinary” studio model is now far more typical of design studio practice. Include engineers, computer scientists, and behavioral psychologists and you have the IDEO of the design community. I still consider the Getty’s exhibition design department groundbreaking within the museum community. Finding good designers who can traverse multiple areas was never easy and continues to be challenging. The design curriculum I teach at UC Davis was developed from this experience, I am preparing designers who can move fluidly between the design disciplines.

Towards the end of my tenure at the Getty, I was increasingly involved in exhibit design projects for other organizations and museums. These projects allowed me to tackle a range of different exhibition environments that were less object-based and more about ideas and interaction. I was looking for a new path, one that would provide me with the opportunity to explore the proverbial question “What is design?” together with finding answers to “What is exhibition design?”. There is very little academic research about the exhibition design process, it is a topic badly in need of further definition and exposure. Coupled with my commitment to teaching the exhibition designers of the future, the joint Design Museum Director and Professorial appointment at UC Davis was far too opportunistic to pass up.




ET: What has prompted your interest in "green " design and materials?

TM: I can cite three major factors:

1) A lifelong exposure to nature and the outdoors and a belief that we all have a social obligation to clean up after ourselves.

2) The beginning and end of a products life rests squarely with the designer. They are the conduit between idea and reality and therefore perfectly positioned to influence change.

3) My work for the environmental action center at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Santa Monica, CA. In 2003, the project held the distinction for being one of the first “green” interpretive centers in the nation's “greenest” LEED platinum certified building: http://www.nrdc.org/cities/building/smoffice/intro.asp#smtop




ET: Can you discuss the scope and goals of the "Year of Eco-Exhibitions" at the Design Museum?

TM: The season of exhibitions highlights the work of designers at the forefront of sustainable and green design. The exhibitions balance conceptual design ideas with practical applications and are intended to provoke questions. The sustainable design movement is full of contradictions, there aren’t necessarily any right or wrong answers, but there are some incredibly ingenious and innovative ideas out there. The exhibitions are accompanied by a series of lectures and a symposium. These have allowed the UC Davis Design Museum to invite some of the most engaged speakers on green design to participate with the regional and university community. The upcoming Fashion Conscious exhibition and symposium (May 18, 2008) is one of the first in the country to tackle the rapidly expanding and controversial world of sustainable fashion and textiles.

Each of the exhibitions closely aligns itself with the three main emphasis areas in the UC Davis Design Program; visual communication, interior architecture, fashion, and textiles. They also educate design students about the future of their chosen profession and complement the program’s courses on sustainable design. Design education is going through another revolution and sustainability is at the heart, it’s amazing how motivated most students are about the issues, and how quickly education is having to adapt.

A primary goal of the exhibition series is to introduce the green exhibition design initiatives I had been incubating over the past several years. This had been my objective since becoming director of the museum in Fall 2005. The strength of the UC Davis Design Museum lies in its ability to experiment with objects and content and how this material is communicated within an exhibition environment. This is the complete antithesis of my work at the Getty Museum where perfection was the ultimate goal. Not to mention that the budget resources are vastly different. I wanted to demonstrate to the museum community that an exhibition can be designed and built using entirely recycled, rapidly renewable, and non-toxic materials, and that the design quality of the space, furniture and graphics do not have to be compromised. The subject of energy efficiency was also broached since this is a significant issue for museums with complex lighting and HVAC systems.
Critical to the success of the exhibitions and our efforts to promote sustainable behavior were the inclusion of accessibly written interpretive elements about the green initiatives we had taken. A series of eco-signs describe and draw attention to the green features using bold graphics. These signs have been evaluated and simplified as the year progresses to help determine the best way to connect visitors to potentially complex and unfamiliar topics.

The long-term goal is the successful continuation of this process at the Design Museum and it’s influence on others. I’m using several forums to communicate the results and findings from the green design wiki to talks and presentations at conferences and at museums. My continued design work for other museums and exhibition spaces serves as a venue for exploring these initiatives in a larger and more visible way. I anticipate publishing the work as well in the future.



ET: What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about eco-friendly design or materials?

Online:
http://www.treehugger.com/
http://www.designersaccord.org/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ (Good stories on the environment)
http://www.makower.com
http://www.nrdc.org/
http://www.buildinggreen.com/
www.greenexhibits.org


Offline:
My students and colleagues at UC Davis.



ET: What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in developing more eco-friendly exhibitions?

TM: Taylor Wise-Harthorn, a graduate student at San Francisco State University has done some initial surveys with museum exhibition design professionals to help determine what is preventing them from adopting green practices. Cost and lack of information scored high, but the most cited reason was policy. Convincing museum directors and senior staff to go green is challenging because it necessitates change and often an upfront cost. However, the upside is that once the initial steps to go green have been taken, it is often very difficult to backtrack.

I have a top ten list of ways to green an exhibition environment, that are simple and applicable to museums of all sizes and can be implemented with little effort:

1. Improve the energy efficiency of exhibition lighting by installing timers and sensors to manage usage. Install CFLs when appropriate.
2. Adjust exhibition climate control settings where possible. Do the objects or exhibits need to be that cool or warm?
3. Design modular exhibition components/furniture that can be easily recycled or reused.
4. Practice the 4Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reinvest). Do more with less.
5. Use low-VOC paints.
6. Avoid vinyl-based signage products.
7. Print on 100% post-consumer paper using non-petroleum-based inks.
8. Use Agri-fiber products such as wheat straw rather than wood-based particle boards.
9. Use screws instead of glues.
10. Inform staff, vendors, and most importantly visitors about your efforts.



ET: Can you tell us more about the Green Design Wiki?

TM: It is very much a collaborative effort between myself and former design student Alan Wells. Alan had chosen to focus specifically on green design for his undergraduate degree. He has now graduated but remains involved with the site's development and maintenance. I suspect you will hear about Alan and his work in this area in the future. Above and beyond the Design Museum website and exhibitions, the wiki is the most practical resource we can provide to the museum community. It is intended to provide a basic grounding in sustainable design concepts and initiate an ongoing dialogue about greening the exhibition design field. The array of materials and products is rapidly evolving, a wiki-based platform is the best model for having others contribute and for keeping it current.



ET: Have you come across any obvious examples of overselling or "greenwashing" in any particular areas of exhibition design or materials?

TM: Lighting manufacturers are guilty of over-hyping the quality of their energy-efficiency lamps and fixtures. CFL and LED alternatives to MR-16 halogen lighting lack the lumens, color rendering and temperature for track systems in exhibition environments. They do offer advantages (no UV, low heat) for localized case lighting where the intensity of light required is less, but I think the color temperature is not there yet, especially for lighting art objects.

Plastic lumber. Beware of the claims by certain manufacturers regarding their products' recycled content. Some contain little or no recycled plastic and even use PVC, the common belief is that all plastic lumber is made from post-consumer waste plastics and sawdust.

Signage products for banners is probably the most contentious. The profits to be made in this industry are huge, and printers and substrate manufacturers are all grappling for an angle on how green they are, or want to be. The Design Museum uses a biodegradable PVC alternative for traditional vinyl banners-- while certainly a step in the right direction, it still has to be manufactured using raw materials and lots of energy. Ultimately it still has to be thrown away in landfill, where under the right composting conditions it will decompose more quickly. The green exhibit design industry is in its infancy and we are going to see a lot of conflicting messages. Lee Knight from Exhibitor magazine says:

“Today, nobody knows what Green really means — no common standards exist. Each client and supplier provides its own definition to its own satisfaction. To date, the number of reported exhibit-related Greenwashing incidents is almost nonexistent, but this could quickly change as the pressure from management to find Green exhibit solutions continues to grow.”
See: http://www.exhibitoronline.com/exhibitormagazine/feb08/knighterrant0208.asp



ET: I'm particularly interested in green aspects of printing and graphics for exhibitions. Any pointers you could offer in that area?

TM: The offset lithography printing industry has been using recycled paper and vegetable-based inks for some time and there really is no reason not to specify these products. The quality is comparable to traditional printing and with the advent of online printing services such as Greenerprinter.com, it is cost-effective and really easy. The signage and large-format graphics industry has some way to go before it can boast its green credentials. The main challenge facing the large format environmental graphics industry is the small quantities and custom-based design solutions (demand isn't driving change...yet!). Chemical-based processes and finishes are currently the only option given the longevity of a signage product, particularly for outdoor interpretive signage which has to withstand the elements, and depending on the location, indoor signage which needs to hold up to touch.

At the UC Davis Design Museum, we have been using a low-solvent-based ink on recycled paper, with no lamination or glues (they are stapled or clipped onto Homasote (recycled board) for all interior exhibition graphics. We've also printed on easily to recycle fabrics and are currently experimenting with Ecospun (recycled plastic bottles) and some of the natural organic cottons. The past exhibition (GreenStop) was printed on BioFlex (a biodegradable PVC banner alternative) using eco-solvent inks.

There are no alternatives to direct application vinyl lettering that I have found (vinyl not being an environmentally friendly product). We used a stencil (using vinyl and a vinyl cutter) on a wall and then rolled non-VOC paint over it and removed the stencil. It works well for titles and large headings and although you are still using vinyl for the stencil at least the product is removed from the exhibition environment.

Smaller graphics can be printed on colored papers using a laser printer. As long as you avoid foam core and spray mount, and use recycled paper boards and non-toxic glues this is a good economical and green way to produce graphics. Reusable clear acrylic covers rather than Polycarbonate laminates provide the protective covering.

The silkscreen process uses solvent-based inks and other chemicals (although the screens are reused). Exterior graphic/signage panels that use embedded graphics under laminates are very energy intensive and chemical-dependent. The commercial exhibit industry is poised to green itself in a big way (bigger business) and that, I predict will act as the catalyst that the large format graphics/ signage industry needs. Museums will then reap the benefits. 


Thanks once again to Professor Tim McNeil for taking the time to share his views and expertise on green exhibition design! To learn more about Tim and his work at UC Davis you can follow this link.

Let us know your own approaches to green exhibition design, or share some of your own favorite resources in the Comments Section.

The Myth That Museums Support Themselves

Martin Filler wrote an excellent article in Architectural Record,
entitled " Debunking a myth about museums that pay for themselves."

Mr. Filler raises several excellent points, but one main takeaway for me was that museum boards, in their quest for the next "Bilbao" oftentimes sacrifice important, if not essential, aspects of buildings like on-site storage.

Creating a new museum building clearly shows the values that the institution's stakeholders hold dear. Does form truly follow function, or do the design stylings of a "starchitect" reign supreme? Does your new museum serve as a gateway to your community or a playground for the elites?

Unfortunately, monumental architecture does not have a great track record for engendering ongoing community support. Mr. Filler highlights recent projects in Toronto, Milwaukee, and Denver that failed to live up to the promise of creating "economic engines" for their respective regions.

An unfortunate corollary to this "edifice complex" in the museum community is the notion of architects serving as both building designers and exhibit designers for new projects. This is generally a bad idea, especially when it comes to museums with high numbers of interactive exhibits. You wouldn't hire an exhibit developer to design a new building (would you?) So why do some museums hire architects to design interactive experiences? Instead of a blending of architecture and experience design, most museums with architect-designed exhibits seem like the interactive equivalent of "LegoLand" with mini-buildings or "design statements" inside a larger shell.

Of course, the economic realities of starting up and maintaining a museum have always been with us. But in the end, true passion, not ego, not finances, is what drives excellent institutions. To paraphrase Mr. Filler, "Do what you love...if you make a profit, good for you. If not, good for you, too, because you’ll have been enriched by living with a thing of beauty."

6 Questions To Ask Museum Exhibit Designers

Here’s a short list of questions that can help you get a sense of whether an exhibit designer might be a good partner for your museum’s next project:

1) How do you prototype exhibits?

Every aspect of an exhibition, including labels, can be tested out with visitors before the “final” version is produced. This does not have to be a horribly expensive or time-consuming process. As a matter of fact, masking tape, markers, and cardboard can go a long way in creating simple prototypes.

Avoid anyone who says things along the lines of: “We test out everything in the shop...” or “ We don’t need to prototype, because our stuff never breaks.” You need to turn real visitors loose on exhibit prototypes to avoid the dreaded “I never thought they would do that with our exhibit!”

You can find a free downloadable article on the exhibit prototyping at the POW! Website.



2) What’s your favorite exhibit?

If your response to this question is either a blank stare or a glib sales pitch --- RUN! Ideally, the designer can report on why specific aspects of an exhibit component or entire exhibition interested them or moved them in some way.

For example, I loved a large-scale interactive based on one of the scenes from a children’s book by William Steig. There were magnet-backed creatures and plants that multiple visitors could move around a room-sized jungle scene. This was part of a larger exhibition of Steig’s drawings in a normally “hands off” museum, The Jewish Museum in Manhattan. It was clear through this area, and a few others in the Steig exhibition, that the designers wanted to provide some colorful, open-ended experiences for families.



3) Will you let us directly pay subcontractors?

Money changes everything, doesn’t it? The financial aspects of your exhibit process should be as transparent as possible. The best designers allow you to see “the books” so you can be assured that the maximum amount possible of your project resources are being spent on items that will show up in your exhibit galleries.

Beware of too many miscellaneous fees or excessive charges for things like FedEx and faxes. It is reasonable for any designer to cover their overhead charges, but it is just as reasonable for you to ask to contract directly with specialists serving as subcontractors to avoid excessive “markups”.



4) Can we use green materials?

No, I don’t mean Kiwi Corian! Your exhibit designer should have an increasing familiarity with environmentally friendly materials. Even if your potential design partner is not a “green expert”, they should be willing to work with you to create designs, and employ solutions, that are “green.”

A great resource is the greenexhibits.org website.



5) Have you ever worked in a museum?

While this is not a complete deal-breaker, a design solution from someone who has actually had to fix an exhibit after 600 fifth graders have pummeled on it carries a lot more weight with me than a beautiful computer rendering from a recent design school grad.

Don’t be afraid to ask practical questions like, “How will this work with large school groups?” or “Will this computer interactive automatically reboot if it freezes up?”



6) Who are some of your repeat customers?

At the end of every crazy exhibit project and installation, after everyone has had a few days to obtain the requisite amounts of food, sleep (and showers!) you ask yourself an important question: Would I ever work with (fill in the blank) again?

The people whom you continue to work with, and who continue to work with you speaks volumes about your work ethic and the ability to get the job done. The mark of a great museum exhibit designer is how they overcome unexpected challenges related to timing or finances or the other hundreds of things that could cause a project to become unhinged.



What are some of the questions you ask potential design partners? Feel free to comment below!

Or better yet, contact me so we can start working on YOUR next project!

Museum Design: Just Let Me In!

When does a museum visit start? Some people might say, "after I pay my admission and enter the exhibit galleries."

However, there are two initial points of contact that come earlier for most visitors: your museum website and your admissions area.

Put yourself in your visitor's shoes and consider what are the simplest ways to complete the desired informational transactions? Are you making pretty nested webpages and slick (but slow-loading) Flash animations that are impossible to click past when most visitors just want hours, admissions, and directions?

Similarly, do your admissions prices, levels, and options make for quick and simple transactions, or just frustrate and annoy visitors, especially first-time visitors?

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is the all-time champ for confusing admissions prices and options, not to mention a crazily ineffective computer-based admissions system. For example, half of the computer terminals at one of their admissions areas are only for non-member transactions. So even if everyone in line is a member, three admissions personnel (on average) just stare into space or repeatedly tell annoyed members that "this computer is only for non-members."

Also, members are supposed to receive free admission to special exhibitions --- except when the museum makes exceptions and charges extra for special exhibitions. Does this make for great customer satisfaction? Not in my case! After repeatedly running the AMNH admissions gantlet, I gave up and canceled my family membership!

So think about the "visit" that starts before your visitors start enjoying the first of your exhibit spaces.

Kaossilator: Cool Gizmo for Music Exhibits

The monkey boys at Think Geek are selling a cool mini-synthesiser by Korg with the nutty name of Kaossilator. For 200 bucks though, it seems like a great deal for a fun electronic box of possibilities for music/tech educational programs and/or exhibits.

The End of Human Body Exhibitions?

This article from the LA Times reports that the California State Assembly voted 50 to 4 to approve legislation to ensure that the people whose remains are on display consented to be part of such exhibits.

Generally the bodies are dissected and preserved in a process called plastination. "Although plastination was intended to advance medicine and science, many entrepreneurs are using plastination to make outrageous profits by dissecting, mutilating and parading unwilled bodies around the world and in our state," the bill's sponsor, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), said during Assembly debate. "Asking for consent and verification is not too much to ask."

Presumably, the Assembly's concerns arise from allegations that the "provenance" of bodies from China used in some human body exhibitions can not be adequately verified.

Personally, I found the traveling Body Worlds exhibition fascinating, if a little creepy. However, no matter what your feelings about the particular content of certain exhibitions, should governments really be determining whether a museum should present a particular exhibition or not?

Creating Exhibitions

Mark your calendar! The Creating Exhibitions Symposium, sponsored by MAAM (Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums) is coming up in April in Philadelphia.

This first annual event promises to be an exhibit-palooza!

Follow this link for more information and the preliminary program.

WD-40, The Museum Exhibit Developer's Friend!

Of course you know about WD-40, but have you really unlocked all it's potential as an exhibit problem solver?

One of my favorite unexpected uses of WD-40 from my Children's Museum days was to use it to easily remove crayon marks from exhibit gallery walls!

Well, the fine folks who make WD-40 have created the "Offical List of 2000+ Uses" for WD-40. Check out their webpage or handy downloadable PDF.

The WD-40 website lists all sorts of fun information for exhibit-minded folks including the reason why the stuff is called WD-40 in the first place!

Sustainable Museums. What happened to COSI Toledo?

In case you hadn't heard, COSI Toledo closed down permanently on December 31, 2007, after 10 years of operation.

I think it's a little sad and scary that one of the early "brand(ed) names" of the science center business, COSI, has taken such a drubbing in both its greatly expanded Columbus location, as well as in its now-defunct Toledo satellite.

Unfortunately, the news of museum closings, like COSI Toledo's, begs several important questions: 1) Are the traditional business models of museum operation truly sustainable? 2) Is the public really willing to support museums directly (through admissions, contributions, etc.) and/or indirectly through taxes, millages, etc.? 3) Should the IRS that grants 501 (c) 3 non-profit status for museums insist on more realistic business plans? All tough questions, which I don't claim to have the definitive answers to, but I am interested in starting a dialogue. So, what do you think?


Here's a link to some comments on the situation from some people who live in Toledo.

UPDATE: Now the folks at COSI Toledo are trying to make a go of it by offering outreach programs to local schools.

Acne Medicine Removes Pen Marks?!?!

Well here's a new one from the "Baby Toolkit" blog. Apparently, acne creams that contain benzyl peroxide, in combination with sunlight, remove ink marks from plastics without causing damage to the underlying material or painted highlights.

Of course, it sorta makes you wonder about putting the stuff on your face and walking into direct sun, though! Nevertheless, a handy tip for exhibits folks.

Vischeck: A Colorblindness Design Tool

Vischeck is a cool website that allows you to simulate (as well as correct for) colorblind vision of documents and websites.

A nice way to be aware of another segment of our audience.

Science On A Shoestring

A great set of articles from Nature outlines many interesting examples and applications of "Science On A Shoestring" from around the world.

One of my favorite examples is the $4.00 bamboo microscope (pictured above) produced by the non-profit group in India called Jodo Gyan

SketchUp for Exhibits

If you don't already know about SketchUp, the free** tool from Google, temporarily stop reading this post and point your browser to the SketchUp site to download your favorite flavor.

(Once you start using SketchUp, their blog is well worth checking out as well.)

I know a fellow exhibit developer that calls SketchUp "AutoCAD for Dummies." While SketchUp may have a much more straightforward learning curve than other 3D programs, the results are beautiful and professional even for a clod like me. (The drawing above is a simple SketchUp rendering that I created for a museum project.) So download SketchUp and give it a whirl!

I'd be interested in setting up a network for sharing SketchUp models and projects related to exhibits and museums. Is anyone else interested?

**Once Google bought the original SketchUp company they started offering a free "basic" version, and charging for the "pro" version (although non-profits, like museums, can get the pro version at a reduced rate.)