how to design an exhibit

Interview Transcript

Date: 9/15/2012

Student Name: Susan Kolber Interviewee Name: Aaron Goldblatt, Metcalfe Architecture 

Group / Association: VIADUCTgreene

General Topic / Interest: Exhibition

 @ Next American City

This past Friday week my exhibition teammate, Amy Syverson, in organizing the show met at Next American city with Museum Exhibition Architect, Aaron Goldblatt, to give us advice on how to arrange our show. Aaron is a member of VIADUCTgreene and offered to talk to us. Kate also in the photo above, is a recent city planner grad from PennDesign and now is an intern Next American City.

THIS WAS NOT RECORDED….this is the gist:

 [AG] Who is you audience?

[SK/AS] Students and the surrounding community. We want to introduce the site through student work, show our process, and get people excited.

[AG] Those are two completely different audiences and you need to be clear on the story you want to tell. Be careful about your audience, a non-design community will not understand a lot of your work. (He references an exhibition at the MOMA on rising sea levels) Focus on a Hierarchy of information. For words use 28 font size or larger.

[SK/AS] What about making a large scale model of the railroad?

[AG] In my experience maps and large scale models are useless. You do not have a lot of time, consider other alternatives of images and objects hung or propped up.

[SK/AS] What about using this wall to show these awesome maps?

Not everyone can understand maps. Try to avoid making your walls books.

[SK/AS] What kind of the foam should we use to mount the boards onto?

Either reinforce basic foam boards (because they tend to sway) or use alligator board.

[SK/AS] What kind of lighting should we use?

You’ll probably spend the most on lighting, go to Home Depot and get clip on lights.

[SK/AS] Where can we get tables for models?

Make saw horse tables.