Designs – Finding the Physical form This is the fourth article in a series about designing and building the Museum of Internal Auditing in eight months. The previous article covered our design kickoff meeting and how it helped refine our narrative. This article explores our design process and how we started defining the physical space. Design is a process and …
Building a Museum in Eight Months – Part 3
Design Kickoff Meeting – Putting our assumptions to the test and finding the right voice for the story This is the third article in a series about designing and building the Museum of Internal Auditing in eight months. The previous article explains how and why we developed an Exhibit Plan for the museum. This article is about how we started the design …
Building a Museum in Eight Months – Part 2
First Step – Putting together an exhibit plan The previous article in this series explores why this museum was important and why we wanted to help make it happen. This article is about how we started making it a reality. Research, writing, editing, scheduling, budgeting, more writing, and more editing. It is that simple. We were hired by the Institute of …
Building a Museum in Eight Months
First Meeting – Finding a reason why the world needs this museum When I first got the call from Judy Burke, VP of Governance for the Institute of Internal Auditors, I thought this was going to be a difficult process. She called me to set up a meeting to explore designing and building a museum about Internal Auditing. First, I …
Everyone Will Be a Hero
Summertime is a perfect time to visit a children’s museum. AST Exhibits recently completed designs for new exhibits in the Explorer’s Gallery at the Children’s Museum of the Treasure Coast. You can read more about the designs here: https://www.astexhibits.com/takers-to-givers/. One of the design goals was to make guests feel like they are something special, that they are heroes. We wanted guests …
Write the Story
When I sit with clients for the first time to discuss their exhibits, they frequently begin the conversation by talking about different ways they want to tell their story even though they aren’t yet totally clear on what that story is. Sure, they know the subject and some of the plot points, but it is not yet a story. It …
Takers to Givers
Takers to Givers Shifting Imagery to build community leaders Takers to Givers is the first in a series of articles about the groundbreaking work we are doing for the Children’s Museum of the Treasure Coast. We Started with Pirates When we first talked to the leadership at the Children’s Museum of the Treasure Coast, we knew that we had some …
The Voice of the Arts
Who is the voice of the arts in your town? After graduating college, I went to work at a commercial classical radio station in Houston Texas. The call letters were KRTS and we advertised that we were the voice of the arts in Houston. It wasn’t just advertisement, we worked really hard to give the arts community a platform to …
Vitrines for Museum Exhibit Cases
Properly designed and executed exhibit cases will both protect your artifacts and allow your guests to see and appreciate them. They allow the artifact to connect your guests with your story and our shared past. While there are many factors that determine how well your cases perform at these tasks, we are going to focus on the glass or vitrines. …
Studio Makeover – What we changed and Why
When you are at your most creative and productive, how do you work? What sort of environment would help you stay inspired? How do you keep a work environment fresh and inviting? We asked ourselves these questions when we decided to renovate our design studio. The Problem Our Design Studio had evolved over the years into a space that worked …
Where the Arts are Alive
Do you remember when you first experienced the arts as a living, breathing thing? I do. I was visiting Austin College in Sherman Texas as a high school student. I had been invited by the chairman of the music department to tour the campus. He took me on a tour through the music and visual arts building. What I saw and heard there …
How much for a hole?
One of the true joys of building museum exhibits is the wide range of things we get to design and build. In my 25 years of experience in this business, I have designed and built all kinds of fun and unusual objects and environments. Recently, I was asked to build something that gave even me reason to pause. A local history center …
The world has seams
The world has seams. There I said it. As I look around our design studio now, I am surrounded by them. Wherever two different pieces of something come together, there is a seam. My relationship with seams has evolved significantly over the years. As a much younger man, I felt like seams were something that had to be conquered. I …
Protect Your Artifacts
What is the best way to protect artifacts in a case? This is a question we get asked a lot. The answer depends on a number of factors, but let’s keep things simple. There are four major factors that will cause objects to degrade when they are in a case environment for long periods of time. They are ultraviolet radiation, …
Reliable, Trustworthy, and Full of Stories
[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text] There are objects that when you look at them and touch them, you can feel their history. They have transcended whatever materials they were made of and are now something more than the sum of their parts. They evoke a time now passed. They hold memories of countless experiences. You feel like you can just touch them and …