Museum directors, designers, technology integrators, architects, and media developers will converge in the world’s museum capital August 21-22 to explore how technology, storytelling, media, and interaction design can attract visitors and keep them coming back.
SEGD’s Exhibition & Experience Design Workshop will be held at a new, larger venue—the District Architecture Center—in response to overwhelming registrations. (It was previously slated at the downtown D.C. offices of architecture firm Gensler.) Limited capacity is still available at the workshop, which will kick off August 21 with project tours around D.C. and convene all day August 22 at the Architecture Center.
“Technology is increasingly important in exhibition/experience design and interactive storytelling. But visitors don’t come to museums to see the latest technology, they come for dynamic experiences they can’t get anywhere else,” says Patrick Gallagher, president and founder of global museum design consultancy Gallagher & Associates (Washington, D.C.). “New and emerging digital tools can help museums create engaging, memorable experiences, but they are techniques that need to be balanced with all of the interpretive tools at our disposal. At this workshop, we’ll share best practices and explore the high- and low-tech solutions that designers and museum directors use to create compelling experiences.”
The two-day workshop will explore the convergent and rapidly evolving practice of exhibition and experience design and how the lines between museums, corporate and visitor exhibitions, and retail are blurring.
Workshop leaders hail from a diverse range of contexts—from exhibition and experience design to web development, typography, science, and brand design. Keynote speakers include award-winning exhibition designers Richard Poulin (Poulin + Morris, New York) and Jonathan Alger (C&G Partners, New York), as well as Monotype type foundry director Allan Haley (Boston), groundbreaking exhibition director Wayne LaBar (ALCHEMY, Maplewood, N.J.), and Gretchen Coss, Gallagher & Associates’ director of business development.
Coss, Poulin, Alger, Haley, and LaBar will be joined by museum directors, technology integrators, media experts, web developers, academics, and retail strategists. Attendees are registered from a wide range of museums (The Newseum, the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Jewish Heritage); cultural institutions (National Aquarium, National Archives, Gates Foundation, Franklin Institute); colleges and universities (Corcoran College of Art + Design, University of California Davis, Harvard University, George Washington University); and numerous technology, architecture, and design firms.
“We’ll be looking at how ‘traditional’ exhibition design and retail design can learn from each other, and how media and interactive technology can be used to propel consumers into stores, museums, and other exhibition spaces,” says Justin Molloy, SEGD’s Director of Education.
For information about the event or to register, visit segd.org/2014exhibitions.
