I’m sure you’ve seen it. Bad design. It’s everywhere and it’s been around for a really long time. You probably run into it more than you realize. I, on the other hand, notice it everywhere. It’s distracting to me. I’ve taken pictures of it and sent it to my friends. If I find it on the internet, I send the link out. It’s like a scavenger hunt, just not as difficult as a real scavenger hunt. Maybe that’s a bad comparison.

Either way, the home computer has really done some damage to the world of graphic design. There are people out there who believe that just because they own a copy of Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, that they’re “designers”. Meanwhile, those of us who spent countless hours in design critiques throughout college cringe every time we see a piece of clip art paired with a comic sans headline.

While researching what I would talk about, I came across this great website. It’s a checklist of sorts that anyone who considers themselves a designer can follow along. It’s also great for those who aren’t a designer but get tasked with a creative project. Below are also a few examples of some bad graphic design I’ve run across. (Rule of thumb, just because you own Photoshop doesn’t mean you have to use every filter at your fingertips. They have their time and place, and the key is moderation. Same for drop shadows.)

JustCreativeDesign

We recently added a new graphic designer to our team and while weeding through resumes and portfolios I conjured up the desire to offer some advice to those applying for positions within the design field. I can’t say this is sound advice for other fields, but if you wish to secure a design position with Taylor Studios one day, here are some free tips:

• Let your portfolio do the talking. If you have questionable work included in your showcase, eliminate it. Narrow it down to only your strongest work. Quality speaks volumes over quantity. When you include weak work in your portfolio your judgment is called into question.
• Design your resume. If you are a designer and your resume is made out of a Word template, there’s something wrong. Make the effort. It’s another opportunity to demonstrate your skills.
• Ensure an easy delivery. I’m a busy gal, and the faster I can review your work, the better. I prefer (quality) print-outs, a PDF, or a referral to a website. If you submit a website address, make sure the website is functional. I will not take the time put in a flash drive or a CD/DVD. It’s too time consuming, and they could contain viruses. If you want your materials back, make sure to send a self-addressed stamped envelope that we can mail it in.
• Keep your cover letter short. I personally prefer no more than one or two paragraphs. In the design realm your portfolio speaks louder than your cover letter. Use the two paragraphs to demonstrate your writing capabilities, which are a necessity in a design career.
• State your purpose. Make sure to specify whether you are applying for an open position, submitting materials for us to keep on file, interested in freelance work, etc. If your intentions are unclear your materials are sure to go in the “no” pile.
• Stress why you want the job. We don’t hire arrogance. We do hire passion.

Many nerds like me have wanted their own Batcave. But due to educational obligations or living in their mom’s house, it didn’t seem very likely. Now we have the resources at our disposal! BWA HA HA!

Most of you are familiar with the movie versions of the batcave.

There’s a lot of rock work, either built into a mountain or beneath a large mansion. Then there’s a big car (that happens to look different every time you see it, but that’s another story). But in the comics, he collects things from his various encounters with the resourceful colorful psychopaths and criminal underworld of Gotham.

A giant dinosaur (prehistoric animal models)

A huge penny (bronze models and other basic constructed elements)

A big joker card (large freestanding image reproduction)

Cases displaying uniforms of deceased sidekicks and villians (humidity controlled archival casework)

And loads of realistic rock work (themed immersive environments)

This can actually happen now. Its a reality. And I work here.
All I need to do now is buy a house with a REALLY BIG BASEMENT.

“Things Today’s Kids Have No Idea About…” You’ve seen these lists before. Most of them are euphemisms like “film at 11”, “carbon copy”, “hung out to dry”, and “pencil me in”. They all point out something from the past that has been altered and no longer exists today.

I thought about the items on these lists and they reinforce an opinion I have… The more senses an experience involves the deeper the impression will be. Do I sound like a broken record? Speaking of records, I remember shopping at record stores… they all smelled similar, music always blaring, shoppers flipped through the bins of LP’s, and the album artwork was cool. The experience certainly involved more senses than shopping on iTunes. This raises a question…

What experiences might we be taking for granted today that will disappear within our lifetime?…

Could it be pumping gas into our cars? Could the smell of gasoline, lifting the pump handle, and hearing the pump’s beeps be mere ghosts in our future lives?

Here’s a challenge. Consider the experience your organization offers the public. What are the sights, sounds, smells, etc.. Do these make a positive memorable impression? Can you affect these? This is the stuff that lasts. Example: Prairie Grove Battlefield Sate Park (Arkansas) interprets a fiery Civil War battle that resulted in about 2,700 Confederate and Union casualties. Within the park’s exhibit space Taylor Studios installed an audio system that subtlety loops the sound of cannon fire & battle cries. The sound aids guests immersing themselves in the story and heightens the experience. On a recent site visit I noticed a note posted on a visitors comment board that confirms this.

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Finally, I encourage us all to soak up the experiences that make up our daily lives. Even the tiniest experience may prove to be an item of reminiscence with time. Thoughts? Please share – just dial me up. Oh wait, phones don’t have dials these days. Well, you get the picture… or is that a JPEG? I digress.

It’s New Year’s Resolutions time, and each year I wish for a slightly less chaotic life. I love my very busy life; but it could use some organizational help sometimes. I love to organize, but I’m not always sure how to go about it.

One rule I stumbled upon I’ve taken to heart, a quote from William Morris,

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

All New Year’s weekend I was evaluating my Christmas decorations:

• Ornament hooks: Useful.
• Crate and Barrel tea light candle holders: Useful and Beautiful.
• Cartoony snowman picture frame missing the glass: Neither useful nor beautiful.

I’ve now been inspired to evaluate my workspace. The Advil Liqui-Gels box with 100 capsules is not particularly beautiful, but if a tight deadline comes along, it is very useful. It stays. The 8 ½ x 11 frame with a photo of my son? Beautiful. It stays, too. The dried-out non-Sharpie pen gets thrown away.

I know I’m much happier with a fun, inspiring workspace—for example, polka dot push pins just make my day better. (Although, in my opinion, polka dots make everything better.)

Enjoy the images of pretty workspaces that inspire me—how do you evaluate your workspace? What makes a good work environment for you?

I really love the circles going on here.

Look at all the colored storage boxes!

Color really makes a difference.

I really love office supplies, and tend to stockpile them. These stenciled office supplies make my heart flutter.

When I started working for Taylor Studios a little over a year ago, I was excited to dive into to this new (to me) world of exhibit design. There was so much to learn and take in. I remember one of my first project meetings. We brainstormed different ideas for the gallery and different ideas for what the visitor experience might be. Towards the end of the meeting, I’m handed a list of the client’s existing taxidermy.

Now, to me, taxidermy has always been a part of my life. My dad is a hunter, so I’m familiar with mounted deer and trophy fish on the wall. What I’m not familiar with is some of the taxidermy that I sometimes see from clients. It’s not always the actual animal that amuses me, but the poses they are put in. Below is a quick example and a video of a pretty funny taxidermy commercial.

We developed a new design process.  Translation: we revised our old process to operate more effectively, to give more value to our clients, we renamed a phase or two, and made diagrams and visuals to convey the whole process in lieu of a lengthy write-up.  And we can’t wait to take it out for a spin.

As a growing company (our design department has tripled in size over the last four years), we identified that it was time to evaluate, assess, and adjust our process.  How did we know?  We complained when things weren’t working, we identified a number of instances where we could have done things differently (in hindsight…of course), and we had lots of people offering lots of great ideas and solutions to our issues.  One problem was that there were so many small issues that we continually resolved with band-aid solutions.  Our process underwent so many small changes that it became difficult to keep everyone on the same page; both clients and staff.

Our New Design Process is three phases long, with a subsequent, collaborative planning phase once we begin production.

Here are some of the key changes in the New Process:

-        We moved up concept development into Schematic Design.  This way we have both an interpretive structure and conceptual structure at the conclusion of the phase.  Schematic concepts will capture both exhibit and graphic concepts to set in place as a visual starting point. This will allow us to treat Design Development as a true development phase. This will also allow us to start budgeting earlier in the game, ensuring that we stay within budget.

-        We are requiring ourselves to provide a 50% deliverable during Design Development.  This ensures that the whole project team, including the client, is on the same page with all decisions made and designs developed to date.

-        We changed the name of Final Design.  We are now calling it Pre-Production.  In assessing our old process, we realized that we don’t really design during this phase.  We tie up loose ends and further detail drawings.  The name Final “Design” was misleading.  Conceptually, the design is fully complete by the end of Design Development.

-        We added a phase at the start of Production called Production Documents.  While we operate collaboratively – with design and fabrication under one (technically two) roof(s) – we never formally made it a required part of our process.  Now, we’ll be able to hold ourselves even more accountable to utilizing our expertise to the best of our ability.  This phase ensures that the fabrication of the exhibits goes as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

We made several other minor changes – such as changing the format of our copywriting deliverables, moving copy and graphic design up in the process, and prototyping interactives earlier in order to help us maximize the value and quality of the end product.  All in all, we anticipate this will be a win-win for us and our clients.

So, after lengthy discussions and development with all departments within the company – design, fabrication, marketing, and accounting – we are proud to announce our “New Design Process.”  In retrospect we should have labeled it with some type of covert operation name.  Any suggestions?

This is one of many things I geek out on. Have you ever taken a photo near sunset or in your friends’ poorly lit house and find out later that it turned out blurry not because the lens was out of focus, but you jiggled the camera? Don’t you hate that?! This doesn’t happen to me because I have surgeon’s hands and don’t get invited to parties, but that’s another story. Using this MAGICAL PHOTOSHOP ALGORITHM THINGY you can let Photoshop figure out how the camera was moved and have it FIX THE IMAGE. (Video contains AWESOMENESS, minor language, and kind of trails off in the end)

Somehow I imagine the only people who will use this are the kind of people that Photoshop their pictures before posting them on Facebook or Internet Dating Sites, you bunch of liars.

I will likely never be a wise man.

I will likely never be a wise man because I lack the moderation of thought that most wise people seem to possess. For much of my life, I thought William Blake’s sentiments in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, perceptive:

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.

But as I matured, expanded my reading, and conversed with people whom I respect, I realized that many of the people I considered wisest, where living lives closer to Aristotle’s moderation than Blake’s excess.

So, as I consider the seeming overuse of exhibit touch screens, the imbalanced impulse in me wants to condemn them all. However, I refrain, recalling conversations with one of our Senior Exhibit Designers who continually reminds me that “There is a time and a place for all design elements.” So I started thinking about when and where touch screens provide the most suitable media choice for interpretive content.

In Paul Orselli’s very useful and informative blog ExhibiTricks: A Museum/Exhibit/Design Blog, he asks if screens are killing interactive experiences museums (August 17, 2009). To support his opinion that they may, he compiled a top ten list named: A Screed Against Screens. He notes:

10. Screens are not “green.”
I don’t care how you slice it up, screens are not a sustainable design technology.

9. IMAX.
The biggest gateway to “cheesiness” in the museum business.

8. The “death trap” introductory theatre.
Didn’t forcing people to sit through a boring movie before they get to the “fun stuff” die out with the 1964 World’s Fair?

7. BIG Touch Screens/Touch Tables.
Somehow the technology that looked so cool in the Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report” has landed inside museums. Proof that bigger is not always better.

6. Individual Experiences Instead of Truly Social Experiences.
Screens hypnotize, not socialize.

5. Screens in museums emulate TV or movie experiences.
But poorly.

4. Screens in museums emulate videogame experiences.
But poorly.

3. Screens become the “easy answer.”
Since visitors will stare at a screen, even if nothing is on it, screen-based technologies often become our default design choice.

2. Screens often become “electronic labels” or encyclopedias.
Screens often become a dumping ground for huge volumes of text that we would never dare stick onto a printed label.

1. Screens don’t age well.
Screen-based technologies and techniques become dated very quickly, but unfortunately don’t seem to get replaced as quickly.

Orselli’s list is one of the few sources I have found that addresses some of the reservations I have concerning the explosion of touch screen requests from clients.

I share many of his thoughts regarding screen technology; however, I want to focus specifically on the overuse of touch screens specifically.

In my experience, touch screens are requested or required in our exhibit designs generally, for three reasons: 1) To include “extra” text and images that would otherwise not make the cut; 2) To provide a high-tech option for for an arbitrary exhibit technology threshold; and 3) Because today’s kids expect and demand them. These three reasons correspond to several of Orselli’s list above.

When confronted with one or more of the justifications above, we ask the following questions: Do we think visitors are going to stand at a touch screen and drill down for additional information on a touch screen? With the general public’s access to smart phones and therefore instant access to the internet, does a touch screen offer something that the phone in their pockets do not? Will kids, accustomed to Wii and Xbox at home find a touch screen engaging at all?

Throughout design, it benefits both contractor and client to continually ask difficult questions similar to the above.

I have seen touch screens work perfectly well in two circumstances.

First, as a visitor interface which controls a larger exhibit experience. For instance, a touch screen can provide a menu of visitor choices that controls interpretive options. Imagine a visitor standing before a wetland diorama, where a touch screen encourages the visitor to interact, perhaps by initiating the calls of shorebirds, or generating an approaching storm. The visitor would be designing her experience—the touch screen would be enhancing her larger experience.

Second, as an updateable exhibit component that requires frequent updates. For instance, if a touch screen is linked to something like a database or website that is being updated hourly or so, i.e. temperature at the top of a mountain that a visitor is about to climb. Using a touch screen as an interface to this content within the exhibit allows us as the design firm to avoid recreating the wheel.

Of course, design balance and effectiveness takes each individual circumstance into account, thus custom exhibit design and fabrication. It would be interesting to hear if anyone out there has seen effective use of touch screens for applications not mentioned above. It would expand my perspective and prove to me “There is a time and a place for all design elements.”

“The little rare-ripe sort that are smarter at about five than ever after.” –Abraham Lincoln on the subject of children

A group of us from Taylor Studios decided to go to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, and I brought my husband and our two-year-old, Sam.

Sam came proudly toting his new Abraham Lincoln doll, and on the whole hour and a half drive down we tried to describe that we live in the United States, the United States has a leader called a president, and a long, long time ago, before grandma and grandpa were born, Abraham Lincoln was a president. Big concepts for a toddler who doesn’t speak in sentences yet.

Because Taylor Studios is currently working on a project about Abraham Lincoln, I thought the whole museum was very engaging and interesting. I especially loved the section about Mary Todd Lincoln and her social rivals in Washington, D.C.

My family’s favorite part of the museum experience was the “Lincoln’s Eyes” presentation. I was very interested to see how Sam reacted, in reference for little kids that would visit the museum we are working on. Thematic sound effects, booming cannons, lightning, people shouting about the Emancipation Proclamation, John Wilkes Booth’s gun going off with accompanying smoke…it’s a lot to take in. The seats even moved! I kept my eye on the exit sign and, as most parents would, tried to plan a graceful escape with my screaming child if need be. But Sam loved it! He clapped at the end and said it was a “good movie.”

Mrs. Lincoln’s Attic, an interpretive play space complete with a doll house replica of Lincoln’s Springfield home, was Sam’s favorite part of the museum. I think he would have stayed for hours if we didn’t have to go eat lunch.

I often wonder at how children will react to museum experiences, especially historical ones that may not be as hands-on. I am continually amazed at how much my son understands. He may not remember that Abraham Lincoln was president from 1861-65, but he remembers that he had a wonderful time, he can now say “Lincoln,” and hopefully we are laying the groundwork for a love of lifelong learning.

Figures of the Lincoln family. Sam adores lifecast figures and mannequins. He hugs them in Old Navy.

Me, Sam, Lincoln the doll, and a young Lincoln figure.