What Is Exhibition Design

This unrivalled handbook is a guide to the world of exhibition design, exploring what constitutes successful design and how it works. It clarifies the roles of the various design skills involved in exhibition design, as new technology and materials expand the possibilities for both form and function.

Exhibition Design 2 describes the skills needed to become an exhibition designer, including: developing a brief and working with clients; design principles for graphics, circulation, lighting, and accessibility; presenting ideas to clients; and the practicalities of production. A wealth of visual material includes photographs of completed exhibitions by world-renowned designers, concept drawings, computer renderings, charts and tables of information—all for a wide range of exhibitions around the world, permanent and temporary, including museums and galleries, visitor centres, brand experiences, festivals and trade fairs. This second edition includes new examples, updated information on the latest digital technology, and expanded coverage of interactives and sound and film.

The way in which the contemporary exhibition is designed is fast changing - previously aloof cultural institutions are making use of technologies and techniques more commonly associated with film and retail. Exhibition Design features a wide variety of examples from around the world, from major trade and commerce fairs, to well-known fine art institutions, to small-scale artist-designed displays. An introduction gives a historical perspective on the development of exhibitions and museums. The first part of the book covers the conceptual themes of narrative space, performative space and simulated experience and the second the practical concerns of display, lighting, colour, sound and graphics. Throughout are photographs, drawings and diagrams of exhibitions, including the work of such internationally renowned architects and designers as Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Atelier Bruckner, Casson Mann, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Imagination, METStudio and Jean Nouvel.

Basics Interior Design 02: Exhibition Design explores the role of the exhibition designer as a creative practitioner, and seeks to communicate a better understanding of exhibition design as a discipline. This umbrella term incorporates the development of commercial trade fairs, brand experiences, themed attractions, world expositions, museum galleries, visitor centres, historic houses, landscape interpretation and art installations. Millions of people visit exhibitions of one sort or another every year, constituting a multi-billion dollar global industry. This book offers a comprehensive guide to the practice of exhibition design, and considers the blurring of its borders with other disciplines, such as graphic design.

Great exhibits are never an accident. Planning effective exhibits is a demanding process that requires the designer to consider many different aspects and navigate numerous pitfalls while moving a project from concept to reality. In Museum Exhibition Planning and Design, Elizabeth Bogle offers a comprehensive introduction and reference to exhibition planning and design. This book focuses on both the procedural elements of successful planning, like the phases of exhibit design and all associated tasks and issues, and on the design elements that make up the realized exhibit itself, such as color, light, shape, form, space, and building materials. This helpful guide includes: Breakdown of the design and development project phases used by professional planner/designers Principles of good design as they pertain to: color, light, shape, form, space, line, balance, accent, rhythm, proportion, and scale Criteria to evaluate an exhibit and measure its success Discussion of construction contracts and procedures Discussion of building materials and their advantages and disadvantages Glossary of museum and design terms for easy reference Bogle has translated her years of experience as an exhibition planner into a guide for practitioners of all sizes and levels of experience. For the solo practitioner, perhaps working with limited or no staff in a small institution, Bogle walks through every task that will be faced as the project develops. For the staff member of a larger institution or firm, this book serves as a checklist, reinforcing the instruction that comes from peers and previous experience. Museum Exhibition Planning and Design is a useful tool for anyone interested in or involved in bringing their exhibits to life.

“This is a must-read for the nervous novice as well as the world-weary veteran. The book guides you through every aspect of exhibit making, from concept to completion. The say the devil is in the details, but so is the divine. This carefully crafted tome helps you to avoid the pitfalls in the process, so you can have fun creating something inspirational. It perfectly supports the dictum—if you don’t have fun making an exhibit, the visitor won’t have fun using it.” —Jeff Hoke, Senior Exhibit Designer at Monterey Bay Aquarium and Author of The Museum of Lost Wonder Structured around the key phases of the exhibition design process, this guide offers complete coverage of the tools and processes required to develop successful exhibitions. Intended to appeal to the broad range of stakeholders in any exhibition design process, the book offers this critical information in the context of a collaborative process intended to drive innovation for exhibition design. It is indispensable reading for students and professionals in exhibit design, graphic design, environmental design, industrial design, interior design, and architecture.

Whether a world fair, an art gallery, a museum or trade show, all exhibitions deal with the same basic commodities, objects and informative space. The skill of the exhibition designer lies in using suitable techniques to ensure that the objects are explained in an accessible way to the widest audience. This guide deals with the whole range of exhibition design, describing both people and processes involved in briefing, mounting, maintaining and evaluating exhibitions. It provides the essential principles of designing an exhibition, whatever its nature and size, and serves as an introduction for the non-specialist and a guide to good practice for students and professionals alike.

Graphic Design in Museum Exhibitions offers an in-depth analysis of the multiple roles that exhibition graphics perform in contemporary museums and exhibitions. Drawing on a study of exhibitions that took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum of London and the Haus der Geschichte, Bonn, Piehl brings together approaches from museum studies, design practice and narrative theory to examine museum exhibitions as multimodal narratives in which graphics account for one set of narrative resources. The analysis underlines the importance of aspects such as accessibility and at the same time problematises conceptualisations that focus only on the effectiveness of graphics as display device, by drawing attention to the contributions that graphics make towards the content on display and to the ways in which it is experienced in the museum space. Graphic Design in Museum Exhibitions argues for a critical reading of and engagement with exhibition graphic design as part of wider debates around meaning-making in museum studies and exhibition-making practice. As such, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and students from the fields of museum and design studies. Practitioners such as exhibition designers, graphic designers, curators and other exhibition makers should also find much to interest them in the book.

Tom Klobe, founding director of the University of Hawai'i Art Gallery and emeritus professor, draws upon three decades of award-winning design work to produce a definitive text on what makes for compelling and unforgettable museum exhibitions. Exhibitions: Concept, Planning and Design presents the basics—the elements and principles of design, use of space, budgets and resources, lighting and wall labels, and more—as well as the inspiring.

Exhibition environments are enticingly complex spaces: as facilitators of experience; as free-choice learning contexts; as theaters of drama; as encyclopedic warehouses of cultural and natural heritage; as two-, three- and four-dimensional storytellers; as sites for self-actualizing leisure activity. But how much do we really know about the moment-by-moment transactions that comprise the intricate experiences of visitors? To strengthen the disciplinary knowledge base supporting exhibition design, we must understand more about what ‘goes on’ as people engage with the multifaceted communication environments that are contemporary exhibition spaces. The in-depth, visitor-centered research underlying this book offers nuanced understandings of the interface between visitors and exhibition environments. Analysis of visitors’ meaning-making accounts shows that the visitor experience is contingent upon four processes: framing, resonating, channeling, and broadening. These processes are distinct, yet mutually influencing. Together they offer an evidence-based conceptual framework for understanding visitors in exhibition spaces. Museum educators, designers, interpreters, curators, researchers, and evaluators will find this framework of value in both daily practice and future planning. Designing for the Museum Visitor Experience provides museum professionals and academics with a fresh vocabulary for understanding what goes on as visitors wander around exhibitions.