The Exhibit

A 2016 study found that the 10 largest U.S. cities publicly displayed fewer than a half-dozen statues of real women. Similarly, we see a lack of female representation in today’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) workforce —  less than 30% of STEM professionals are women! In response, IF/THEN – The Exhibit is designed to activate a culture shift among young women to open their eyes to future STEM careers. IF/THEN’s approach is rooted in a simple truth: seeing is believing. When a girl sees a woman successfully pursuing a STEM career, she is more likely to imagine a STEM career for herself. The AAAS IF/THEN® Ambassadors featured in the exhibit represent contemporary female STEM professionals and are excellent role models. They come from a variety of industries including entertainment, sports, business, and academia. On display at the exhibit, visitors learn the personal and professional stories of each ambassador, stand in an augmented reality “see yourself as a statue” interactive, solve clues in the Ambassador scavenger hunt, and even meet the ambassadors in person as they visit the exhibit.

“Our organization has always believed science is the answer to many of life’s problems. And, now more than ever, it’s important to showcase the women in STEM who are helping make our world a better place,” said Lyda Hill, founder of Lyda Hill Philanthropies in a 2019 press release. “IF/THEN’s mission is to empower leading women STEM innovators to inspire the next generation of pioneers so that we can all build a better future.”

With the combination of creativity, powerful role models, and technology, we created IF/THEN – The Exhibit.

The Technology

Once it became clear that we need more women in STEM and more statues of women, it was clear that a high-tech approach should be used to create the exhibit. IF/THEN, Lyda Hill Philanthropies, AAAS, and Amaze Design, came up with a plan to create the largest 3D-printed project of its kind, and Group Delphi was thrilled to produce the statues and exhibits. We called on all AAAS IF/THEN® Ambassadors to join us for a photoshoot, each posing with their selected props for a full-body 3D scan. Each subject stood in a scanning booth that combined 89 cameras and 25 projectors to generate a lifelike 3D image. 

We then leveraged Massivit’s large-format 3D printing technology to produce these detailed, life-sized, statues. The 3D printer works by pairing 3D scans with sophisticated additive manufacturing, leveraging a rapid UV curing gel. This gel is incredibly durable, so the statues don’t need an internal structure, making them lightweight to handle and transport. Once each 3D print was complete, we moved into finishing to perfect every lifelike detail, before applying the signature orange paint color. 

Three previews of the exhibit have been featured at the Central Park Zoo, Dallas Love Field, and Northpark Center and we are so excited that the full exhibit has come together. #IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit is open at the NorthPark Center in Dallas, Texas now. 

Source: #IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit

Click here to learn more about Large Format 3D printing.

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What is an ADU?

An accessory dwelling unit, typically shortened to the acronym ADU, has been called many names — granny unit, in-law unit, studio, or pool house. They are, most simply, a secondary housing unit on an existing single-family property. ADUs are affordable and effective options for adding more housing spaces to meet the need in California. These spaces offer individual buyers more options for how they leverage their property, whether providing living space for family or as a potential short-term revenue source via rental that can positively impact property value long-term. 

Why Choose Pre-Fabricated Over Stick Build?

Secondary structures have a host of unique applications and potential, including different supply chains that improve production time and using new materials or old ones in new ways. Their size (between ~400-1,200 sq. feet) allows for experimentation with pre-fabrication in factories, using new methods like additive manufacturing (i.e. Large –format 3D printing), delivering panels or modular units to job sites for faster construction times on-site, the efficiency of material use for reduced environmental impact, and standardization in product quality and performance. They also create a secondary market of innovation like using technology to batch projects, co-manage construction, and increase transparency in the building process. All of these innovations in pre-fabricated ADUs offer buyers efficiencies in cost and predictability in quality and timeline.  

Group Delphi’s Approach

In this Build It Green panel, Justin Hersh asserts that the challenge in the housing industry is not a lack of innovation, but one of integration. Our goal at Group Delphi is to leverage our production technology, methodology, and deep knowledge of the supply chain to improve the predictability of quality, timeline, and cost of ADUs for every individual buyer. Our approach is to bring together the best ideas in the market, integrate them in a factory environment, and deliver to the consumer in a way that meets the need, while also supporting our local communities and the environment.  

For more insights on how Group Delphi is meeting the gaps, and opportunities present, in the ADU space, view the Build It Green Forum session here. 

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The original author of this quote may be unknown, but it has been a philosophy that we’ve lived by at Group Delphi for the last thirty years. From embracing storytelling and the creation of experiences when most exhibit companies were still defining themselves as cabinet makers, to being one of the first exhibit companies to have an in-house digital content and production team, we’ve always endeavored to skate to where the puck was going.

The last ten months have been incredibly challenging for our industry. Our hearts go out to all those that are reimagining their careers and hope to rejoin the industry as it rebounds. These are passionate people who have given so much of themselves to the live events industry.

At Group Delphi, we have strived to use this time for our own reinvention; we’ve taken our core competencies in strategy, storytelling, and state-of-the-art production and uncovered a unique path with which to take into the future.

Today we embark on a major change that will both provide a more robust experiential partner to the industry and strengthen our company for the future. I’m happy to announce that the tradeshow and event portion of our business has been acquired by Sparks. Sparks is a company that we have long admired; filled with bright and passionate people that care about each other and the clients they serve. They have a vision of the future of the experiential marketing world that we believe puts them at the forefront of the industry, they are indeed creating the future. Our team members and clients in tradeshow and events could not be more excited to be joining this talented group.

The next chapter for Group Delphi is one that is informed by the great work we have done and the incredibly talented people that continue to work with us, but with a clear eye towards the future. We will continue to operate out of our Alameda, California headquarters, focusing on the following areas of work:

• Museums. With twenty-five years of producing some most significant projects in the museum world, we are driven to continue collaborating with our design and agency partners. Together, we create experiences that tell stories and move audiences to see the world in new ways.
• Themed Entertainment & Permanent Experiences. At our heart, we have never lost the thrill of the show and we are excited to be bringing our production capabilities to a wide range of themed environments.
• Restaurants. We have been heartened by the restaurant operators that continue to move forward in the face of this challenging time. Together, we are envisioning new restaurants that will be, in the not-too-distant-future, filled with people enjoying the experience that can only come from gathering together in person and over food. We are delighted to be providing world-class equipment and millwork for these projects.
• Fine Arts. We are honored to be continuing this sixty-year tradition of printing and mounting work for talented artists, galleries, museums, and private collectors. We are delighted to have complimented our Fine Arts service with the integration of our acrylic display production team, producing a range of very high-end acrylic work for museums and others.

Finally, stay tuned for a new offering from Group Delphi. With a select suite of projects, we are working to stake out a position in transforming the way housing is conceived and produced.

In closing, we think you’ll be as excited as we are by the bright future ahead for all of us at Group Delphi.

Sending you all my best,

Justin Hersh

The post Honoring Our Past While Looking Towards a Bright Future appeared first on Group Delphi.

In short, dining out is an experience. Yes, we want good food, but the experience is a huge part of why we go. The dining scene has changed significantly in recent years, and no more so than in 2020. Successful restaurants are adapting to the changes with a renewed focus on the experiential side of the restaurant business. To keep up with the latest, we spoke with Thor Garlick, who leads our Restaurant Solutions team, and he shared his insights into the most important restaurant design trends, and what we can look forward to seeing more of when we head out for meal.

It’s All in the Delivery

One of the biggest pressures on the restaurant industry today comes from the rapid rise in popularity of delivery services. The kitchens may be busy, but in many cases restaurants are seeing fewer people in the dining room.

“Delivery has become such a big factor that restaurants have to focus on getting people to come in,” says Garlick. “Up to 30 percent of some restaurants’ business is now coming from delivery.”

This has design implications. Some restaurants are devoting kitchen space to just serving delivery orders, and many are incorporating a pickup space for delivery drivers that doesn’t interfere with front of house operation and offers more space for social distancing.

Even before delivery started playing such a large role, restaurants were already faced with challenges that mirrored the changes in the retail landscape. Fewer people in shopping districts and malls due to the rise of online shopping translates to fewer people in restaurants in the same locations.

“As fewer people are coming in, restaurant marketing has shifted to focusing on experiences, on bringing back the community feeling of dining out,” says Garlick. “Old-school casual dining restaurants are struggling and have to adapt. Customers really want an experience when they go out to eat.”

Just Add Experience

So how exactly are restaurant designers enticing people back? By adding new activities and making eating just one of the reasons you come to a restaurant.

“More and more, restaurants are focusing team resources and sanitary measures to hands-on experiences — bocce, corn hole, golf — even in the type of places that wouldn’t have considered that before,” says Garlick.

Take video games. In the glory days of Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac-Man, game rooms were places to stow the kids while parents had a chance to eat in peace. Now, the experiences are for adults as well. Venues like Punch Bowl Social are nationwide, offering eating and drinking amid bowling, karaoke, and yes, video games. They’re reimagining these experiences to offer a safe way for families to get out of the house and enjoy activities while dining and interacting in a safe environment.

A major trend-setter in experiential dining is Top Golf. Backpacking on the old-school idea of the country club, where booze, food, and golf reign supreme, the nationwide chain offers eats with games for guests of all ages.

“They’ve taken the concept of combining food and drink with hands-on experiences to a new level,” says Garlick. “Others are starting to realize that they can do the same thing, but at a much smaller scale and still be appealing to customers.”

Adding experiences changes the way restaurants design spaces. Restaurants that aren’t devoting some of their dining space for experiential, are often shrinking their footprints, or are dividing up the space so they can accommodate larger crowds as needed, while not looking empty at slower times.

Big Visuals

Along with new experiences, restaurants are realizing that they need to create more memorable visual landscapes that help them stand out.

“The standard oak tables and chairs are no more. The furniture today is looking much more high-end and visually dynamic,” says Garlick. “We’re also seeing a lot of focus on walls, from large scenic art to custom wall coverings.”

The industry-wide shift to LED lighting has opened up a world of new options for designers, much as it has in retail and trade show booth design.

“Lighting is showing up in all sorts of surfaces — not just in traditional lighting fixtures. Surfaces, walls, and other custom design elements can easily incorporate modern lighting,” Garlick says.

Restaurants Go Green

Customers are increasingly wanting to see brands taking sustainability seriously, and that includes the restaurants they frequent. In response, restaurant chains are starting to use more eco-friendly materials and fixtures. Sustainably-harvested lumber is in high-demand, as well as brick and stone walls. Lighting has also gone green.

“LED lighting has replaced essentially everything. It’s not just environmentally friendly, but it’s a considerable cost savings as well,” says Garlick.

In the kitchen, changes have made restaurants more sustainable while helping the bottom line by using less power and water.

“Manufacturers of kitchen equipment are putting a lot of research and development toward creating appliances that use less water and electricity,” says Garlick. Likewise, cost-effective flow control on faucets and boilerless steamers are becoming the norm. “Items like these reduce both cost and overall water use, which important when so many places are experiencing drought.”

In addition, ventless technology on commercial electric cooktops eliminates the need for expensive hood installation and allows for easy reconfiguration of the kitchen design.

Back to Basics

Nearly all of the restaurant design trends have one goal in mind: to remind people why going out to eat has always been fun and an important way to build community.

“Restaurants are great places to go make memories,” says Garlick. “That’s what restaurants and bars were for in the first place.

The only difference today is that this might also involve a fierce game of bocce.

The post Restaurant Design Trends appeared first on Group Delphi.

Group Delphi’s Chuck Williams Culinary Arts Museum project is nearing completion. The exhibit honors Charles E. “Chuck” Williams, founder of the vaunted retail chain Williams Sonoma, but it also tells the story of the unique history of gourmet cooking. (You may know that the Culinary Institute is the world’s premier culinary college, but their campuses aren’t just for students. They also feature restaurants, classes open to the public, and gift shops.)

The culinary museum is located at the Copia campus in Napa, CA, and visitors will have the opportunity to view thousands of culinary artifacts from across the globe–some dating to the 1800s.

Working closely with the project architect, ARG, and the CIA Board, Group Delphi’s project team created sets of modular cases to showcase the historic cooking tools. Curated graphic design elements enhance the collection’s layout and reveal the distinct and robust culinary techniques of historic, high-end fare. The design of the displays and the environment align with the Culinary Institute’s distinct “culinary aesthetic” brand—white backgrounds with wood accents. Group Delphi oversaw the design and fabrication of all walls and freestanding cases to include a modular case furnishing system of risers and shelves to accommodate future updates.

Whether you’re an aspiring culinary genius, or you simply appreciate the life-affirming qualities of a delicious meal, the Chuck Williams Culinary Arts Museum holds magic for everyone.

Want to chat with us about a museum project? We’d love to hear about it. Get in touch with a Group Delphi exhibit expert today!

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The psychology of color in experiential marketing, leveraging your brand colors, will define the impact of your trade show exhibit. You have a short window of time to capture the attention of potential customers and help them understand your value: colors, when used with intention, can be your ally.

Psychology of Color in Marketing

When you use color to achieve an emotional connection with your customers, you’re working on a subtle level relative to most marketing efforts. Hurly Burly Live Food Culture uses colors drawn from the foods they sell, with different lively saturations of earthy green and yellow. Japanese men’s perfume brand Rasaru uses two variations of orange in its packaging to invoke vitality and health. Both brands have base colors to convey their messaging, accompanied by curated complimentary saturations and secondary values.

History can also come into play in how we interpret color. When Tiffany & Co. introduced their famous robin’s egg blue in 1878, it was following the popularity of turquoise jewelry at the time. It was a hit. The New York Sun reported in 1906 that “Tiffany has one thing in stock that you cannot buy of him for as much money as you may offer; he will only give it to you. And that is one of his boxes.” Over time, the color has become associated not just with the brand, but with luxury.

A 2011 study in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sciences showed that while base colors matter in marketing, their level of saturation and value, or the amount of light and dark, is just as important. Take Google’s use of rich, playful primary colors, which has been employed since the company’s birth back in 1998. While color establishes a brand personality, this can in turn “influence customer preferences and usage, transform customer experience, and serve as a building block for relationship building, trust, and loyalty.”

Setting a Tone in Experiential Marketing

In the context of events and experiences, you’re working on a much shorter timescale, so your focus should be on the more immediate uses of color. If your brand already has a recognizable color scheme, use that to allow customers to spot you from afar, and then use secondary colors and variations throughout your exhibit to match the theme of your current experience. For a high-energy experience, make the exhibit pop by turning up the volume of your scheme with livid hues and highly-saturated colors. On the other hand, if you want to evoke a sense of confidence and calm, combine cooler hues with stronger, primary colors.

When employed well, colors can convey meaning faster than any sales presentation. For Group Delphi client Prestone, we designed the walls of their exhibit to fade from icy blue to scorching red to show their range of products designed to work for cars in the face of extreme temperature.

The Geography of Color

With traveling exhibitions, color can be used to make your brand feel more localized and even seasonal on the trade show floor. Based on the locale of the event, shift your palette accordingly to reflects the local culture’s expectations and interpretations of colors.

One key thing to watch for with colors: their meaning often gets lost in translation. For example, while black may be associated with power and authority in western culture, it takes on a different meaning according to Chinese feng shui, where black is an element of water and “holds the energy of power and protection.” Meanwhile, in the Middle East, black signifies rebirth. Green in America means tranquility and calm, while feng shui offers it as a solution to absent-mindedness, rudeness, and nervousness.

One of the most culturally-definitive American businesses, McDonald’s, employs red and yellow as their brand color scheme not because of heat (red) and potatoes (yellow). Nor is it solely because the vibrant color scheme makes it easy to spot from a Great Plains highway. In fact, it is because red is a stimulating color that can quicken your heartbeat and make you hungry, and yellow is associated with happiness in the United States.

Combine and two and voilà, you’re pulling into the drive-thru quicker than you can say “a side of French fries.” Or is it voilà? In France, yellow is associated with jealousy, weakness, and betrayal. So, what works for a French fry in America may not do the same in, well, France.

Choosing a brand color scheme or trade show palette can be a delicate process with occasional cultural landmines, but it can also be an incredibly fruitful one when approached thoughtfully. Grab your customer’s attention, show them what you stand for, make them feel confident in a purchase, and do it all with a splash of color.

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A recent study from the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley shows that an exceptional experience causes our brain to “attempt to change the mental structures that we use to understand the world.” In other words, the reason you feel different after a moving experience is that your brain is actually reworking itself. You don’t just feel transformed, you are transformed.

The Art of Buzz

How, then, does the art world use the experience of art to enhance its impact? Foremost, to get people talking about art.

Take the annual Met Gala. The Gala was established in 1948 to raise awareness for the Metropolitan Museum Art’s Costume Institute and launch their annual exhibition. Over time, it has become an anticipated blockbuster event, with international appeal for both the glitterati’s costumes on the carpet as well as the theme for the new exhibit. In fact, the red carpet has become a piece of art itself, inspiring (and often shocking) viewers all around the world, turning the most lackadaisical dresser into an instant fashion critic.

Disorientation Leads to Discovery

 Art is never content to stop at pure attention; art seeks to change the way people perceive the world. The annual International Venice Biennial is taking this on by attempting a behavioral experiment: Can art serve as a guide for how to live and how to think?

The 2019 exhibition, entitled “May You live in Interesting Times,” the name based on a supposed curse, directly asked its participants to reflect on the act of experience. As Chair Paolo Baratta explained, “To us, it is important that, when entering the exhibit, the public becomes visitors, who then become viewers of the works. First, the necessary disorientation, then the involvement, followed by the discovery; it is almost a fencing drill.”

To get to that stage of discovery, organizers intentionally brought in works by artists who challenge conventional thought and embrace contradictions, artists who make viewers confront their own beliefs, and leave with a new appreciation of diverse viewpoints.

Awe Builds Connection

Not all art needs to challenge our very notions of reality, some of the most profound experiences come from works of art that leave us with eyes wide and jaws dropped, like that book you couldn’t put down. To study the effects of awe-inducing experiences, neuroscientist Beau Lotto recently studied the brains of people watching Cirque de Soleil, arguably one of the most imaginative performances out there. While his subjects took in a performance of O in Las Vegas, Lotto recorded their brain activity via EEG helmets. He found that awe links to our sense of community, history, and risk. The experience left its viewers in an emotional, altered state of consciousness, focused foremost on connection to others.

The lessons from the psychology and the experience of art are inevitably tied to our emotional awareness, triggering an expansion of our minds. Think about this next time you sit down to consider your next experiential project. Perhaps your boldest connection yet will also be your most empathic.

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Sure, many might see the latter argument as elitist and unrealistic, but everyone has a line after which art dissolves into a puff of overly corporate inanity. But where does the line of no return lie? And, more to the point, who gets to decide?

Street Art vs. Advertising Trends

One of the bigger arenas where this argument plays out is in the public space. Consider the British group Brandalism, whose work advocates a creative resistance to the perpetuation of corporate control of public spaces. As a larger pattern, this is nothing new: street art and advertising have long competed for space with the consumer, with the two locked in a visual struggle for viewer’s attention.

The struggle itself becomes fertile ground for artistic inspiration on both sides of the debate: companies are finding new ways to bring street art into their campaigns. Shephard Fairey, perhaps best known for his Barack Obama “Hope” poster, has gone on to sell his work to corporations like Saks Fifth Avenue. Fairey argues that this enables him to keep other artists employed. But does it work as both art and advertising?

Take the legendary England-based artist, Banksy. While, to our knowledge, the notoriously subversive artist has never collaborated with a corporation, he makes a salient point about how artists can get their work out there.

“There’s a whole new audience out there, and it’s never been easier to sell [one’s art],” says Banksy. “You don’t have to go to college, drag ‘round a portfolio, mail off transparencies to snooty galleries or sleep with someone powerful, all you need now is a few ideas and a broadband connection. This is the first time the essentially bourgeois world of art has belonged to the people. We need to make it count.”

Embracing the Gray Area

Banksy is decidedly not talking about brands, advertising or experiential marketing. And yet, this world-as-canvas approach to reaching consumers is being applied by brands. Pandora recently commissioned an interactive street mural of DJ Khaled, painting in the Lower East Side of New York City. The mural, painted by street artist Lexi Bella, also includes a QR code, which when scanned, takes visitors to an online audio-visual experience plus more from their “Sound of Summer” ad campaign. While some might cringe at the concept, others see this as an innovative, beautiful way to reach new customers — in either event, people are sitting up, paying attention and talking about it.

The gray area between art and advertising gets even grayer when art installations are used to promote causes, often with the support of for-profit companies, and downright black when the argument divides the art world. After the artist Anish Kapoor bought the exclusive rights to use the world’s blackest black substance, Vantablack, another artist, Stuart Semple, announced that he is developing an even blacker black and making it available to all artists in the world — all except Anish Kapoor. Now that is some artful advertising.

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Experiences are just one piece of a larger “slime economy,” which is no mere novelty. As NPR reports, Etsy is filled with slime peddlers — and that’s not meant as an insult. Instagram has over 5 million posts hashtagged #slime with hands stretching goo, and YouTube has slime celebrities like Karina Garcia, with over 6 million subscribers and currently taking in as much as $200,000 a month from sponsorships. For marketers looking to deliver novel experiences that play into current trends, slime — as low-tech as it might seem — is too big to overlook.

Big Time Slime

Recently, Nickelodeon brought “Slime City” to Atlanta, a 20,000 foot installation located in the trendy Buckhead neighborhood. Based on the epic sliming tradition of Nick’s early hit show “You Can’t Do That on Television” and extended through their annual Kids Choice Awards, visitors made slime, got slimed, and left covered in slime, all the while Instagramming the experience with their hopefully slime-resistant phones.

As Sharon Cohen, executive vice president of The Nick Experience told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Our iconic slime is the ultimate symbol of free-spirited mess and the physical embodiment of the fun and irreverent spirit of Nickelodeon.” Using nostalgia plus fun, the exhibit tapped into a powerful, memory-making experience for its attendees — and that includes the parents who grew up watching those ‘80s and ‘90s slime-based game shows.

The Magic of Touch

Slime, while distinct in its oozy nature, is arguably part of a larger trend in exhibits: tactile, hands-on activities that tap into childlike wonder. Instagrammable experiences like Happy Place, where you can dance in the world’s largest confetti dome, or the Museum of Ice Cream, where you can slide into a pool of sprinkles, are bringing joyful tactile experiences to cities around the country.

The estate of Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, is soon opening the Dr. Seuss Experience in Boston. Among other activities, visitors can travel through a balloon-covered maze evoking “Oh, the Places You Will Go” or wander through a forest of Truffula trees with the Lorax.

“Our goal is to have children shriek with joy,” says Mark Manuel, CEO of Kiburn Live, the company presenting the experience with Dr. Seuss Enterprises. No word if they provide tissues for teary, nostalgia-ridden grown-ups.

Just Add Joy

What can we learn from using kid-inspired joy as marketing tool? While children respond to fun, silly, and/or gross experiences, grownups do as well. Clearly, consumers are craving fun, wrapped up in nostalgic experiences that evoke strong reactions and bring out their inner child — even in a work setting.

Now it’s true, your audience isn’t going to appreciate unwittingly being slimed à la Nickelodeon, but embracing the spirit of childlike wonder can take many forms in a wide variety of experiential scenarios. Something as simple as an art station, a “Sneeze Wall,” or a tactile maze can make a strong impression on visitors, and leave them with a positive brand association and memory. The best upside? Everyone gets to have a whole lot of fun while it happens.

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“Doing museum work gives us the kind of insight from a hands-on perspective that a lot of other companies really don’t have,” observes CEO Justin Hersh.

Here are some of the best lessons we’ve learned about how to captivate hearts and minds through compelling museum experiences.

Start the Experience Early

The second you get out of your car in the parking garage and note that you’re parked in — no, not Level 2, but the “Purple Octopus” level, the museum experience has already started. You haven’t even paid for admission yet, but you already know exactly where you are and what type of experience you can expect inside. Plus, you’re not going to forget that octopus. Museums, galleries, and aquariums know how to engage their visitors early, often leveraging digital experiences that visitors will engage with when planning their visit.

Point the Way

That purple octopus from the parking garage, it’s also pointing a helpful tentacle in the direction of the elevators, showing another strength of museums: wayfinding.

Once inside the museum, you’ve got choices to make. Do you want to see the new exhibition on Georgia O’Keeffe’s flower paintings? Try the Earthquake Shake Experience? Or see the Penguin Habitat? Yes to all three? There are festive signs on the walls pointing the way. You look at your feet, noting the brightly painted paths on the floor to guide you, no matter your height. After years of answering the same questions for lost penguin-seeking visitors, museums have mastered the use signage, maps, and architecture to lead you through both to and through an experience. The signage itself is often playful and beautiful — integrated into the overall design of the museum space.

Tell a Story in Sound

As you look up at the rocket suspended over your head, you take in the incredible visual details: the careful lighting, the ceiling providing a sense of stars. There’s also a noise: a crackle of an old radio, a low rumble of engines, a voice counting down in seconds. Museums embrace multisensory experiences, using sound, in particular, to immerse visitors in a place and time.

The Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, created an interactive AV exhibit with a virtual version of the master himself, who, in true Dalí form, ask visitors to consider topics like death, immortality, and art. Anyone visiting a Dalí exhibit is likely familiar with his work and distinctively peculiar perspectives on the world. The Dalí Museum knew exactly how to deliver on it — by bringing the artist back to speak to visitors directly from beyond the grave.

Build to Last

Museums, particularly ones that encourage interaction with the exhibits, have to provide the same flawless experience to visitor number 10 and to visitor number 10,000, so the durability of exhibits is essential. If you build it well once, you save costs and time in the future repairing the exhibit — and no visitor is happy with an exhibit that’s broken and out of commission. Each interaction creates wear and tear. The quality of construction is paramount if you want to save budget and headaches in the long run.

Measure, Learn, Evolve

Museums have a key advantage in that they’re exhibiting every day. This offers notable insight into their audiences and what they want, as well as the time to rethink and retool. Is everyone gravitating to the digital interactive on black holes, but ignoring the diorama on neutrinos? This isn’t a failure, it’s data.

This is how museums keep their audiences captivated, and inspires many return visits!

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