What the Holiday Season Can Teach Us About Exhibit Design and Interpretation

Thursday, December 8, 2016 1:00 PM by Taylor Studios in Design and Planning


What the Holiday Season Can Teach Us About Exhibit Design and Interpretation

If you’re like me, you’re probably by now sick of the constant barrage of holiday ads, songs, displays, and themes that have made our lives a hue of red-and-green since the beginning of November. It seems that our televisions, radios, and department stores have all been taken hostage until the New Year! Although it might be counterintuitive, I want to play the devil’s advocate. Rather than bemoaning this constant barrage of holiday-themed, multi-sensory overload, I want to posit that we in the fields of exhibit design and interpretation can actually learn from it.

We Hate to Admit It, But They’re Successful!

I think that we’d all admit that those who market the holidays do a pretty darn good job of it! When was the last time that you spent two months thinking about any other time of the year, or any other holiday? When was the last time that you sung a “Father’s Day carol” or baked “Constitution Day cookies”? Whether we like to admit it or not, those who market the winter holidays do a fantastic job of grabbing our attention, immersing us into their world of holiday excitement, and engaging us in their holiday activities (i.e. usually buying one thing or another!).

So what can we – the exhibit designers and interpreters of the world – learn from them?

  • First of all, the importance of relevance:

As all good interpreters know, a successful exhibit must be relevant to the lives of those who visit the site. People become engaged only when they can relate to something personally. Those who market the winter holidays know this all too well. The classic example is the luxury car commercial that somehow makes every viewer feel that they want to buy a new expensive vehicle with a big red bow on top! For most of us, buying a new $50,000 Lexus as a gift for someone is the furthest thing from our minds! But the commercials always make the scenario feel relevant to us – for example, who hasn’t had that experience of standing forlornly in a store trying to find the right gift for someone? The lesson: figure out how to make our content relevant, even if visitors might not think that it relates to their own lives.

  •  Next, the importance of immersive environments:

Another thing that holiday marketers do well – creating wholly immersive environments in order to evoke feelings, emotions, and desired actions. Visit a Macy’s ten months out of the year, and it looks pretty much the same. But come November, it is decked out in Christmas trees, red ribbons and bows, and even life-size nutcrackers! Why? Because they know that immersing shoppers in this environment creates an emotion-laden mood, one which will make them more receptive to certain actions. In exhibit design, we should also utilize fully-immersive, multi-sensory physical spaces – not to get people to “shop” for some type of gift, but rather to “consume” the important content that we’re presenting.

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  • Finally, the importance of a shared social experience:

The best marketers realize that the holidays are not merely about getting presents – rather, it is the communal and social experience of both giving and receiving. Exhibit designers would be wise to realize this too – visitors to museums and interpretive centers do not only want to passively receive information (not matter how rich the information is), but they also want the opportunity to give something of themselves to the exhibit. That is why co-curatorial exhibitions are becoming ever more popular. Twenty-first century visitors still want (and need) to receive something valuable from a cultural institution, but they also desire to create part of the experience themselves, to leave part of their own experience in the space, and to help “curate” the exhibit space for other visitors. As with the holidays, the best social experience is one where they both give and receive, and where they get to share an experience with many others communally.

So there you go – perhaps the next time that you see a giant Santa or get handed yet another stale candy cane, you might remember that the constant buzz of holiday immersion isn’t all that bad. As exhibit designers and interpreters, there is much that we can learn from these long two months! However, rest assured, I will be the first to celebrate when my local Wal-Mart takes down their Christmas aisles!

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