The wonders of museum content
While updating my website today, I came across this Natural History Museum panel. It’s part of several updates to the permanent collection I made for them a couple of years ago.
It’s the perfect example of why I love working with museums and galleries. As the panel is 2m wide it won’t be legible here, but the intro paragraph reads:
‘Discover the planets and regions that together make up our solar system. The size of the planets are shown in proportion to each other but distances from the Sun are not to scale.’
So, that part about the ‘sizes of the planets are shown in proportion to each other’ is what really made me sit up and pay attention. Look at the sizes of Jupiter and Saturn in comparison to Earth ... a mind-blowing difference. I realise too, I’d always believed Mars was bigger than Earth for no reason other than a vague assumption.
What hits home about this is that not only is museum content fascinating and enlightening – it’s very necessary, otherwise we’re ignorant of the facts.
“The Oort Cloud is the most distant region of our solar system, and it is thought to contain more than a trillion icy objects.”
My job as designer/illustrator is to:
make facts visually digestible, coherent and as appealing as possible (while staying on brand)
make sure all the photos & text fit within the space - here it was across 2m
ensure the images are high resolution enough to be printed
take into account the physical setting - this panel is in a dimly lit gallery and isn’t flat but is wrapped around a large column
Juggling all these considerations is only possible with years of experience and more immediately in the moment, several iterations and some creative resilience. Also the fact that I’ve visited museums and galleries since infancy, and it’s literally still one of my favourite past-times, is what makes all the difference to the quality of my work. I believe that kind of interest can’t be faked.
Back to the design process: once I’d worked out a good first proof, the Museum’s astronomers and editors checked the design and we went through a couple of rounds of amends, before sending it off to print. (I’ll take a photo of it in-situ next time I’m there and will share).
One more wonderful fact to ponder on before I close this post:
‘The Oort Cloud is the most distant region of our solar system, and it is thought to contain more than a trillion icy objects. The Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, will not reach the Oort Cloud for another 300 years!’
I’m speechless …
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