ICT – Report Draft 1
Title
How do you create an experience?
Or
Exhibition space and the process designers follow to access the space and how it reacts with the audience.
Overview
There are thousands of exhibitions around the world, each one of them different from the last. But what makes them dissimilar? How do the designers create a brand new experience each time? Every space, audience, content and brief are different, so how do design companies produce the right outcome for the right experience.
Over the course of this report, questions will be answered as well as information gathered for the reader to gain, a good understanding of how exhibition design is executed. There are many design companies that work on making the right experience for the audience. This report will look into the work process of these companies and create a ‘Check list’ or ‘How to guide’ for anyone who is about to create an exhibition.
There have been exhibitions ever since the ‘Great Exhibition’ in 1851. This report will look back at this great exhibition in London and look into how this was designed, created and any feedback that can be gathered. Looking into this may gain a better understanding of where exhibitions have come from and how different it is now from then. There are a number of exhibitions open at the moment, looking into the ‘Great Exhibition’ and these will be great resources as well as some background knowledge for this part of the report.
The next main step in this report would be to obtain information from the current period. This section will look into current design companies that are working with exhibition design everyday. They are at the centre of the action and how it has developed since the 19th century. These companies are the main focus and will be the main resource for this report. Interviewing them and creating a great database of information and process, is the aim. Getting first hand accounts will be a great way to collect do’s and don’ts, which will then be used to create a better understanding of the process.
There are many books written about exhibition design and the areas that have to be looked at, from the beginning, to the end, however they aren’t up to date. It would be great to compare these two resources and see whether they have changed much due to current climates and technology development. Creating a time line may be a great visual way to see the differences. Seeing whether current designers still reference these books in their design process will also be interesting.
An area that could be looked into, linked to exhibition design, would be retail and how the space is used differently in this situation, to react with the audience and create an experience. Researching floor plans and the use of space could be interesting but maybe this could be a report in its own right.
Chapters
· Introduction
· The ‘Great Exhibition’ of 1851
· Current experiences
· The Designers process
· Do’s and Don’ts
· Influences in retail
· Conclusion
Action Plan
The next step is to start gathering the research and resources. There are many ways to gain the relevant information. The starting place would be in the library where there are various resources available, Books, journals, videos and references. This report will then venture further a field and visit some actual exhibitions to absorb the experience created for the audience. Visiting a mixture of galleries and museums will provide a diverse bank of resources and will allow this report to compare any differences and similarities that may occur.
Visiting the design companies directly will provide a large, hopefully varied group of information from a number of designers. Visiting different design companies will show a range of different process, looking at companies, where exhibition design isn’t the first and only element of design, may provide different outcomes.
Bibliography
Books:
Exhibition Design, David Dernie
Exhibition Design, Arian Mostaedi
Designing Exhibitions, Giles Velarde
The Great Exhibitions of 1851, A Nation on Display, Jeffrey A. Auerbach
Retail Desire, Design, Display and Visual Merchandise, Johnny Tucker
Exhibitions: Universal Marketing Tools, Alfred
Visual Merchandising and display, Martin M Pegler
The Wayfinding Handbook, Info design for Public Places, David Gibson
Wayfinding, Designing and implementing Graphic Navigation Systems – Craig M Berger
Designing Exhibitions, Bertram Schwarz Frey
Exhibition Design, Theory and Practice, Arnold Rattenbury
Design Week, Signs – Vol 24 No. 25 – 25th June 09
Websites:
Holmes Design – www.holmes-wood.com
Stills Design – www.stillsdesign.com
Together Design – www.togetherdesign.co.uk
Alan Farlie – www.rfkarchitects.co.uk
Bisset Adams – www.bissetadams.co.uk
Design week – www.designweek.co.uk
Sounds like an interesting area to research – I favour the 1st title – How do you create an experience. I do think you need to focus on Graphic Designers who work on exhibitions rather than the generic term of ‘designers’. There are lots of graphic design studios who do exhibitions: Studio Mysercough, GTF, bibliotheque, ico design etc – make it more useful to yourself and more focused for the reader.
ReplyDeleteI would seriously advise against writing a section on the Great Exhibition – this is a report – not a history essay. However, you could design a timeline that maps innovations in exhibition design throughout history. That way you could pack a lot more info in but keep the words/text short.
Base it on what is happening now – only refer to the past if it’s really important. As you are looking into what creates an experience you should be looking more into science, technology, psychology, and how designers are using this information to design exhibition experiences rather than recounting what happened back to the past.
I think looking at retail design could be a good comparison but be careful you don’t get too deep into that. You’ve only got 4,500 words and people want to read about how to create an experience.
Here’s how I’d do the chapters:
· Introduction – the questions you are raising
· Current experiences (examples of designer’s processes, excerpts from interviews etc)
· Influences (retail, science, history etc – maybe in a timeline or info graphic format)
· Do’s and Don’ts (built into the conclusion)
· Summary
· Appendix (interview transcripts, Bibliography, research materials etc)
The action plan and bibliography look fine – how I’ve suggested you do your chapters should make more of the interesting bit of your research – visiting and talking to graphic designers who do exhibition design.
drn
Sounds like an interesting area to research – I favour the 1st title – How do you create an experience. I do think you need to focus on Graphic Designers who work on exhibitions rather than the generic term of ‘designers’. There are lots of graphic design studios who do exhibitions: Studio Mysercough, GTF, bibliotheque, ico design etc – make it more useful to yourself and more focused for the reader.
ReplyDeleteI would seriously advise against writing a section on the Great Exhibition – this is a report – not a history essay. However, you could design a timeline that maps innovations in exhibition design throughout history. That way you could pack a lot more info in but keep the words/text short.
Base it on what is happening now – only refer to the past if it’s really important. As you are looking into what creates an experience you should be looking more into science, technology, psychology, and how designers are using this information to design exhibition experiences rather than recounting what happened back to the past.
I think looking at retail design could be a good comparison but be careful you don’t get too deep into that. You’ve only got 4,500 words and people want to read about how to create an experience.
Here’s how I’d do the chapters:
· Introduction – the questions you are raising
· Current experiences (examples of designer’s processes, excerpts from interviews etc)
· Influences (retail, science, history etc – maybe in a timeline or info graphic format)
· Do’s and Don’ts (built into the conclusion)
· Summary
· Appendix (interview transcripts, Bibliography, research materials etc)
The action plan and bibliography look fine – how I’ve suggested you do your chapters should make more of the interesting bit of your research – visiting and talking to graphic designers who do exhibition design.
drn