Taylor Studios is happy to announce our attendance and exhibition at the 106th AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo™. The event is one of the industry’s largest and will be held April 28-May 5 in Minneapolis Saint Paul.

While there Taylor Studios will host a celebration of our 20th anniversary. If attending, you are cordially invited to celebrate with us on Tuesday, May 1st from 4-6p with cake and champagne! We’ll be in booth #1011, across from the AAM Showcase.

Taylor Studios will be participating many events surrounding the conference so if you’re there please keep an eye out for us. A few places we know we’ll be in addition to the MuseumExpo include:
Sunday Evening Opening Reception
Monday Evening AAM Events at Como Park Zoo, Minnesota History Center, and Science Museum of Minnesota.
Tuesday Evening TEA mixer
AAM is a wonderful opportunity to rekindle friendships and start new ones. We hope to see you there!

Our account team is growing in 2012. We’re pleased to announce the addition of Sam Cooper. His name may sound familiar. Cooper has been servicing the exhibit industry for the past 12 years with media producer Dempsey Film Group. As a past vendor to Taylor Studios we recognize the shared values Cooper holds and are excited to have him on our team. Below is a quick Q & A to acquaint you with Sam Cooper.

What is your industry background? I’ve represented interpretive filmmakers, motion graphic artists, and multi-media producers to exhibit designers & builders for Dempsey Film Group since 2000.

What gets you excited about interpretive experiences? I’m like a 5-year old, I want to push & pull on things. It’s fun and it feels like I’m participating in the storytelling process when there’s opportunities to touch.

Favorite exhibit or interpretive experience? Walking tours of the Capitol Mall in Washington DC.

Personal Goal? I would like to work on a Smithsonian project. Taylor Studios has created work for the Smithsonian, but that was prior to my tenure.

Favorite Quote? Hmm, I like this one a lot from Jimmy Johnson – “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra”.

Sam Cooper joins Myrna Webber on Taylor Studio’s account team. They look forward to working with our clients and prospective clients on exciting upcoming projects.

Taylor Studios is currently researching an additional design service for our clients. This service is visitor evaluation, specifically front-end visitor evaluation.

I am struck by the pressing need for visitor evaluation data several times a year. These times normally occur during design kickoff meetings with the client.

I become conscious of the need, when I hear something along the following line:

Stakeholder: We need to incorporate several interactive touch screens in this exhibit for the kids.

Or this:

Stakeholder: Our attendance is composed of a pretty even split between older adults, younger adults, and children.

Or this:

Stakeholder: I would say 80% of our visitors already know the benefits of a clean watershed.

The above examples are fabricated, but they reveal an occasional tendency: at times (because of budget, schedule, under-appreciation for the value of planning), generalities and assumptions about the visitor stand in for visitor evaluation findings.

Real World Examples

The following examples are not fabricated, but adapted from specific Taylor Studios’ experiences.

• One project had a requirement for bilingual signs. In a heavily Hispanic area, this made sense, anecdotally.  However, after evaluating likely visitors, it turned out that the site likely hosted more German than Spanish speakers.
• Studies have shown that visitors will pay attention to an exhibit audiovisual for three minutes when standing and seven minutes when sitting. However, a visitor evaluation showed that a thirty-minute movie at one particular site was far-and-away the most popular of all the exhibits, something the design team would have never guessed.
• A project consisting of a dozen outdoor signs was intended to interpret the natural history of a site. After discussing what visitors were most interested in, it was revealed that they were most interested in the cultural history of the site.

Conclusion

A site’s messaging is a blending of the stories inherent in the site’s resources, the interests of the site’s stakeholders/managers, and the interests of the visitors. The first two components of the messaging (site’s resources and interests of the stakeholders) are often readily accessible. The last component (visitor interests) often takes a little more effort to uncover. Soon, Taylor Studios will create the process and procedures for offering visitor evaluation….stay tuned.

“It’s sad…and yet it’s awesome.”

This quote came from a recent newspaper article about a beached blue whale on a Northern California beach. It was the reaction of one of the many visitors who flocked to the scene to see our largest mammal up close.

This was also exactly my reaction when a coworker and I got a chance to see the beached whale while visiting Rancho del Oso to kickoff an exhibit project. Blue whales are by far the largest mammals today, and maybe even the largest mammals ever to live on earth—much bigger than dinosaurs.

It was extremely sad to see one decaying on the beach, especially a pregnant female that was likely killed by a ship. Apparently there had been a six-month-old fetus that had already disappeared by the time we got there. However, it was also incredible to see this giant creature up close. This mix of feelings created a dilemma for us. I kind of wanted to get a picture in front of the whale, but it just seemed a little inappropriate. We snapped some pictures of the decaying animal by itself, which was also pretty morbid.

We heard from our clients at Rancho del Oso that there would be some docents at the beach to answer questions, as well as researchers. We must have been there too early in morning because the beach was pretty empty. But there were some interesting (scary?) signs posted around the paths down to the beach.

This was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will stick with me for a long time. Have you had any experiences with wildlife that have been sad but awesome?

As I’m sure all of you know, we have introduced each member of our staff to you during Meet the Staff Mondays (if you’re, by chance, not sure what I’m talking about, look under “Categories” on the right side of this page and click “Meet the Staff Mondays” to get caught up).  In the coming weeks, we will begin a new series for you to follow: Talk to the Team Tuesdays.  We’ll be chatting with various people around the office and we’ll share it with you via video.  If you have a question for us, post it in the comment section below and I’ll pick a question each week to have someone answer during our Tuesday interviews.  If you haven’t already, be sure you subscribe to our RSS Feed so you won’t miss anything.

Last Friday, the Taylor Studios team came together to create the first official Grant Hughes Appreciation Day. Grant has been the Production Manager here at TSI for over two years and the staff decided it was time he got the appreciation he deserved.

The highlight of the day was Friday’s  fabrication meeting when Marc and Brian were all done up in their best ‘Grant gear’ which consisted of glasses on top of their heads, painted on receding hairlines, and manly goatees.

The design staff stepped in with a custom ‘Phillustration’ (an illustration by our Senior Graphic Designer Phil) and a banner with various ‘Grant-isms’ such as “send me an email,” “horseshoes and hand grenades,” and “correct me if I’m wrong.”

Grant was a good sport about it, claiming that “imitation is the best form of flattery.” There were some good laughs on Friday and we gained some great company photos. What have you done lately to show your employees/coworkers you appreciate them?

Fall has come in central Illinois, and I have the sudden urge to be surrounded by pumpkins, drink cider, and have an excuse to break out my jacket.

For the past two weekends in a row, I’ve taken my 15-month old son to the Curtis Apple Orchard on Duncan Road in Champaign. It is his new favorite place, as he is obsessed with pumpkins now, and wants to carry one everywhere he goes.

The orchard is home to an apple orchard, pumpkin patch, and also fresh peaches, bees and therefore honey, and an assortment of goods in its country store.

I was surprised to see all of the interpretive signs the orchard has—and something I’m now familiar with through working at Taylor Studios: flip doors! There is some dispute as to whether a flip door constitutes an interactive exhibit, but in this instance, I think it does. I wasn’t the only one discovering what bees made honey from the flip doors.

The orchard has themed Wizard of Oz objects and signs throughout, with a Flying Monkey Café and the Cowardly Lion greeting guests as they cross into “Munchkin Land” (the toddler playground). The flow is not exactly cohesive, interpretively, as there are also farm animal signs (the orchard is home to a petting zoo) and a train play form, but my son and I had so much fun, I didn’t even care.

Meet Plyboo, Office Terror:

How long have you been with TSI?
Three months

What did you do before you started working at TSI?
I was just a tiny ball of cuteness.

What do you do at TSI?
As the office terror, I attack people’s legs and feet, bite hands that try to pet me, knock over drinks and breakable things, and eat office plants. When I am done with my other duties I like to take adorable afternoon naps.

What do you like best about TSI?
I like the amount of limbs here for me to bite. When one department has had enough, I can move on to instill fear somewhere else.

What’s your favorite TSI project?
I don’t know anything about any projects.

Why?
I’m a cat.

What’s something your coworkers don’t know about you?
My daddy was a liger.

What’s the favorite part of you day?
The morning, when people arrive for me to ATTACK.

Last week we were all very excited to welcome Lisa Brochu, Associate Director of NAI, for a day and a half of company-wide training. Interpretation is at the core of what we do every day, so we wanted the Interpretation Guru (which Lisa insisted she was not, but we all know she is) to come in and tell us how to do it better.

We asked her to come and train everyone on how to effectively apply the principles of interpretation to interpretive planning, design, project management, marketing, and even fabrication. Lisa was the perfect person to bring in for this, as she has extensive experience in many different areas, including marketing and client relationships. She also provided valuable insight into what our clients want and what frustrates them.

As one of TSI’s three interpretive planners, I was allowed to sit in on all of her training sessions. She provided plenty of question/answer time, and it was great to be able to ask her questions that we have been discussing internally for a long time. I learned a ton, but the most beneficial part for me was when she reviewed some of our past interpretive plans and provided feedback. I was relieved to hear that we are doing a good job, and also very interested in the recommendations she made. She brought a fresh perspective on our processes and we will definitely be implementing some of the things she suggested in future interpretive planning projects.

Have you had any great training experiences lately? If you had the chance to pick someone’s brain for a day and a half, who would it be?

Jane Skinner, Controller:

How long have you been with TSI?

7 years

What did you do before you started working at TSI?

15 years as Controller for a manufacturing company

What do you do at TSI?

Financial management and department head

What do you like best about TSI?

Our product is easy to get excited about.  We have produced many interesting exhibits and there is a sense of pride sharing them with your family and friends.  I also enjoy the team atmosphere at TSI.  Everyone is cooperative and working toward the same goals.

What’s your favorite TSI project?

Gettysburg cyclorama

Why?

I visited this exhibit last fall and it is very cool.

What’s something your coworkers don’t know about you?

I grew up in a big family – I have 5 sisters and 2 brothers.

What’s the favorite part of you day?

Early morning – I like to think about my day and make plans for what I can accomplish.