Happy (Museum) Easter (Eggs)

I'm on the road in California, but in honor of the season, here's an encore post -- a homage to museum "Easter Eggs."  Enjoy!

 

Museum designers often add "Easter Eggs" to their work.  But not the brightly dyed or chocolatey varieties --- these are more akin to the hidden "Easter Eggs" that you may stumble across (or deliberately search out) inside video games, crossword puzzles, or DVDs.

For visitors, it's fun to feel like you've found a little "secret" inside a museum building or exhibition, and for designers, it's a little "trick" to reward visitors for carefully observing and examining things inside the museum.

"Exhibits as advent calendars" as Dan Spock has observed (to mix religious holiday metaphors a bit!)  So here are a few of my favorite museum easter eggs:

• Secret Elves at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science: Artist Kent R. Pendleton worked on many of the Museum's dioramas, but supposedly he wasn't allowed to sign his name to his work.  Instead, Pendleton included little "elfin" figures hidden throughout many of the displays.  There's a great blog posting about Pendleton's retro easter eggs!

• The Magic House Mouse:  The Magic House Children's Museum outside St. Louis has some wonderful exhibits, but one of my favorite "hidden gems" is the tiny decorated mouse hole near the baseboards in one of the galleries.  If you were just whizzing around you might not ever see it, but if you're willing to get down on your hands and knees you might see (as in the photo below) a "presidential" mouse:

• The "Hidden Tunnel" at Casa Loma:  Casa Loma is a gigantic historic house/castle outside Toronto that is filled with enough crazy details to keep even little kids interested during the self-guided tours.  One of the things I remember from a family visit (nearly 40 years ago!) was the cool secret tunnel, nearly 100 feet long, that was hidden behind a pivoting wall section (just like in all those scary movies --- but this was real!)  that led to the Casa's underground wine cellar:

Of course, some museums, like The City Museum, also in St. Louis, or the Museum of Jurassic Technology in L.A., are practically interlocking collections of "easter eggs" or in-jokes, but that's certainly one aspect that makes them so popular.

What are some of your most memorable Museum Easter Eggs?  Let us know in the "Comments Section" below! 

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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!

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"Don’t be the best. Be the only.”

'Tis the season when publications like USA Today and Parents Magazine trot out their click-bait "Best Museum" lists, and when museum staff everywhere cajole everyone they know to vote (repeatedly!) for their institution.

How can you compare two completely different museums, say the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and claim one of them is the "best" art museum?

The people who seem most interested in these "best museum" lists are executive directors chasing donors or museum marketers looking to gain some flimsy PR bragging rights.

As that great museum philosopher Jerry Garcia once said, 

"Don’t be the best. Be the only.”

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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!

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New Project -- JOT@Exhibits Videos!

I've just started a new video project called JOT@Exhibits (Just One Thing about Exhibits.)

The video series will feature exhibit designers and developers who want to share "just one thing" about exhibits in a short video.

I hope you'll check out the very first JOT@Exhibits video in the series with Amparo Leyman Pino (embedded below) or on the POW! YouTube Channel.

If you'd like to record your own JOT@Exhibits video with me, please contact me with your ideas!

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"

Museum/Exhibit/Design Tool: Artvee

If, like me, you are often looking for public domain images to use in museum graphics or other design projects, Artvee is a great online resource to explore.

Artvee is a website that allows users to browse and download high-resolution, public domain artworks. The images are drawn from a worldwide variety of museums and other cultural institutions, like the New York Public Library.

Although you can freely search Artvee, the website also has created categories and collections of images, including, Book Illustrations, Mythology, and Artists, among many others.

I've sprinkled a few downloaded images from Artvee throughout this post, but you should check out the website yourself and bookmark it for future projects!

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"

What's On Your Three Lists?

“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men ... "

Robert Burns could have been a museum planner.  Despite the best laid schemes for our museum and exhibit projects, things often do go awry.  Whether it happens during the initial stages of value engineering (often providing neither "value" nor "engineering") or just before the opening of a new building or exhibition, the harsh realities of schedules and budgets often squeeze our hopes and dreams like a vise.

In an effort to shake myself out of the funk that often accompanies different parts of the exhibit/museum development process, I've taken to creating three lists for myself and suggesting that clients do the same.

What are the titles of those three lists, you ask? 

• Things that MUST happen before opening

• Things that would be NICE to happen before opening

• Things that ABSOLUTELY WON'T HAPPEN until after opening

Exactly which things you put on your lists will vary from project to project, and situation to situation.  (It's a pretty sure bet your new museum will need working front doors on your first day, but if a few staff office chairs arrive a week late, it's probably not a reason to cancel the opening gala.)  But to proceed otherwise, as if everything on all the punch lists and wish lists and to-do lists will happen before opening, is at best, a rookie mistake, or at worst, a one-way express ticket to Looneyville.

So pause a moment to process the bad news you just got from your General Contractor (or Director or Fire Marshall or Lead Designer ...) take a deep breath, and gather your team together to start putting together your three lists.

Your project (not to mention your health and sanity) will be better for it.

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"

Cool Museum Exhibit Design Tool: Spoonflower Custom Fabrics

Spoonflower is a cool website that lets you turn your ideas into real fabric creations!

Spoonflower gives people the power to print their own designs (like the one above) on fabric, wallpaper, or gift wrap. The idea is that you upload a digital image (or use the Spoonflower imaging tools) to the website and then Spoonflower prints the design on a range of materials (of your choice) that they ship directly to you.

You can see some real-life examples and read commentary on using different materials and techniques via the Spoonflower blog. 

All in all, Spoonflower's services provide another interesting resource to add to your design toolbox! 

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"