It was also the very last thing I did before I left Boston for DC…back in June. Yeah, it’s been a while.

First I had to find a theme…. I worked with George Restrepo to brainstorm a half dozen promising directions. The eventual winner—”Wicked Problems/Wicked Solutions”—was born while myself, George, and a couple other AIGA volunteers on the BoNE committee were discussing the concept of wicked problems and how design is essential to problem solving. Keeping tongue in cheek, I also liked that if people didn’t exactly understand our intent for the theme, it could also be interpreted as “wicked” in the New England sense.

The call-for-entries (above), designed by Kristen Coogan, featured a playful Rube Goldberg-esque problem-solving machine. The visual identity was carried through the rest of the competition and awards show’s graphic pieces, including the website (below), designed by Justin Hattingh, with online entry system put together by Jeremy Perkins—all-around make-everything-on-the-internet-work guy.

I also tried to keep all of the associated events aligned to the theme; for example, at the meet-the-judges event the three judges each gave a presentation related to “wicked problems.”

All event and exhibition photos by Ben Gebo, with thanks.

For the exhibition, we continued to play with the problem solving theme. Katelyn Mayfield designed a component-based display system: individual displays could be arranged in any configuration to take advantage of our huge gallery space on Boston University’s campus. The displays could then be packed flat and shipped to other venues when the BoNE Show “went on the road” after its run in Boston.

Here is that huge gallery space, full of awards show guests:

All the exhibit displays were in the front third of the gallery, arranged in a maze-like way to give people the sense they were discovering each winning design project. Each display was custom-designed for the design project it would hold and hand-built from corrugated plastic sheets and PVC pipes. Windows and shelves were built by cutting and folding the plastic sheets, by Katelyn and a crack team of awesome volunteers, including BU’s student AIGA group. Some photos of the exhibit displays:

And some details… Designers’ names were laser cut from thick illustration board and the edges of shelves were finished with cyan-colored tape.

Below, left: I commissioned furniture designer Seth Wiseman of ConForm Lab to design and build two sets of “tangram benches” which could be moved into endless configurations—a human-sized three-dimensional tangram game. The benches were sold during the event auction and the money benefited AIGA Boston. Seth also designed and built the tangram stage, which is in a couple of photos below.
Below, right: For the media-based winning entries, we created a simple kiosk with a great interface designed by Joe Morris.

Below, left: Dan Watkins manning the “photo booth.” He also shot all the photography for the show’s catalogue.
Below, right: DJs Dan Riti & Kevin James in their sophomore BoNE Show appearance.

Above, left: The silent auction table. We also had a live auction for the big-ticket items. Go big or go home… Jason Stevens was my sponsors man, along with Kathleen Byrnes. Because the point of this entire production was to raise money for the non-profit AIGA, we tried to get everything for free, or at least on the cheap, and were very thankful for all of our generous sponsors.

Above: The (ahem, award-winning) awards show catalogue designed by George Restrepo and printed and bound by ACME Bookbinding, and the keepsake entry ticket designed by Ira Cummings and printed and foil stamped by EM Letterpress.
Below: The awards show! AIGA Boston chapter president Matthew Bacon served as Master of Ceremonies.

Above left: BoNE Show volunteers hand out bone trophies, cast in aluminum (or bronze for the Judges’ Choice winners). Those things are for real—they weigh a ton and all winners’ names were punched by hand (by Bridget Sandison, who also—along with Juliana Press and Meghann Hickson—took care of receiving and sorting and tracking all the competition entries).

Above right: Me and Tracy Swyst, AIGA Boston’s VP of operation, who has overseen many many many BoNE Shows. Other people I’d like to thank: the rest of the AIGA Boston board: Heather, Jodi, Colleen, Brandon, Jillfrancis, Diane, Chiranit, Lee, Mat, Jason R, and Sarah, and the boards from AIGA Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, and NH/VT, and everyone else who lent a hand in any way.

It was a really great experience. I was so glad when it was over. :)

I only have eyes
+ Everyone’s been raving about Doug Aitken’s SONG 1 at the Hirshhorn…because it’s awesome. I’ve visited twice; and would—will—visit at least once more before it closes on May 13. My grainy snapshots don’t do this any justice—you have to experience it in person.

The Titanic
+ If you’ve missed the hubbub, the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking is April 15. Dozens of exhibits about the ship and sinking are opening, including the biggest of them all, in Belfast
+ Also: Fire & Ice at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum; Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, everywhere; Titanic at the South Street Seaport Museum in NY

The Rails
+ The Union Pacific Railroad Museum’s Building America traveling exhibit—in a traveling train car, naturally. The entire museum opens in Iowa in a month.

Exhibit Education
+ Part 1 in a series of articles describing exhibit design, from Mark Walhimer at museumplanner.org: exhibit planning
+ Blueprint, a guidebook to build your own history museum in the 21st century, from The Museum of the Future

Pinned Inspiration
+ ROLLS installation at the Diesel Denim Gallery
+ Ice ceiling
+ Purple-sided lightboxes
+ German Expressionism at the MoMA
+ San Diego Children’s Museum

I’d rather not include too many posts about now-closed exhibits that I saw ages ago, but in the case of Talk to Me at the MoMA, the online exhibit is itself worth exploring. I also liked the pixel illustrations on the introduction (the photo above) and the punchy red walls and reader rail (the photos below).

Silver, Salt, and Sunlight is an exhibit of rare early British and French photography. Really lovely and worthwhile; see it at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston through August.

Changing Earth at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia is about land, air, and water, and how these have changed and continue to change on our planet. There’s a lot happening in this exhibit and it was sometimes overstimulating, but overall it was nicely designed, interesting and informative, with clear “take-home” messages and memorable interactive experiences.

The designers (Adirondack Studios in upstate NY) used environmentally-sensitive materials throughout the exhibit. This description from the museum’s website gives an overview: Flooring is made from recycled content and post-consumer waste products. All wood is Forest Stewardship Council certified or bamboo; the metal is recyclable; paint is low-VOC, and graphics are printed on recycled material using water-based inks.

I visited this exhibit about a year ago, not too long after it opened (and wrote this post about another exhibit that had opened at the same time). Details are a little hazy I’m afraid, but here are some photographic memories. And if you want to check it/them out in person both exhibits are still on view.

The centerpoint of the exhibit was a giant satellite-Earth dome (photo above). Inside was an introductory film.

I love two-tone dimensional letters…

Above, right: An example of the direct-to-substrate printing used throughout the exhibit.

Text was super-short and to the point, making for more memorable key messages.

The exhibit was full of interactives and touchable displays.”Jump here” was an earthquake simulator.

My “temporary” hiatus went longer than expected. That perfect “bam! I’m back!” post topic never appeared. I was quiet too long, and this blog situation got to be rather awkward.

Let’s forget about all that and pick up where we left off, shall we? I have a backlog of exhibit design goodness to share with you. Yes that’s right…bam! I’m back!

In the meantime, if you’re in the New England area please join AIGA Boston at the Best of New England (BoNE) Show in Boston on June 9. Tickets available here.

Behind the scenes
+ Creating Material Lab at MoMA
+ Design to Preserve at Cooper-Hewitt

Coming soon…?
+ On the Mall 1: National Women’s History Museum
+ And 2: Proposed Smithsonian Latino Museum Faces Hurdles
+ “Jurassic Park meets Buckminster Fuller”—a zoo that imagines a reunited Pangea
+ MoMath, the Museum of Math in New York, raising funds

In the meantime
+ Vertical Urban Factory at the Skyscraper Museum in New York (slide show here) and Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War at the Canadian Centre for Architecture
+ The World’s Largest Dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History looks amazing; slide show (I love photo 3!)
+ La Plaza de Cultura y Artes Mexican American cultural center in LA, “screens in a public alley space that both bring the stories out of the museum and draw passersby into the experience.” More in this article from GOOD

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)
+ The National Museum of American Jewish History opens in Philadelphia
+ Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center; review and slide show
+ The Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles: review and slide show

One for the road…
+ The T steps up its “See Something Say Something” campaign. The package in North Station:

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At MoMA through June 6 is the exhibition Looking at Music 3.0. It explores music’s influence on contemporary art (and vice versa) during the 80s and 90s in NY. Dim lighting, gaudy neon walls, and early music videos blasting on the large screen in the middle of the gallery: it’s almost as though you’ve returned to the time of boom boxes and mix tapes. Social and political issues are mentioned briefly in the exhibit copy—but there are many topics touched upon in this relatively small space, so don’t expect a thorough history lesson. Art and music are loosely grouped by topics such as ‘early hip hop’ but, fittingly, neither chronology nor subject dictate the layout of the exhibition in an obvious way.

Above, a place to sit and watch the music videos. There were only a few in the loop, to discourage lingering I’d imagine. What they may not have realized is that people would stay quite awhile to watch Grace Jones. Also, listening stations throughout the exhibition (below, left) and an interactive media installation by Perry Holberman (right)…

You can read more about the process of creating the exhibit in this Listening to Art blog post.

Bonus pics below of the entrance to Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914, an exhibition of 70 collages, constructions, drawings, mixed-media paintings, and photographs. On view through June 6 and definitely worth seeing.

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I was honored to be involved with the Say Something Poster Project (mentioned previously, here), lending my exhibit design services to Saturday’s Poster Show.

This was a case of less being much more. Initially I started with grand ideas to incorporate elements from the website branding into the three-dimensional exhibit space, but gradually the exhibit was whittled down to its essence, to give the 25 poster finalists all the attention—and to make the one-day installation manageable.

Below is Matt Budelman, designer of “Think Half Full,” one of the ten winning posters. He’s making a cameo to show the system I settled on—posters hanging on 1.25″ bulldog clips held to the wall with L pins, and labels mounted to black illustration board and attached top and bottom with L pins. Because I’m quite particular, you bet all the edges on those labels were hit with a deft stroke of gray marker.

Other things I helped with: “the poster show” script title on the back was drawn by illustrator Chris Piascik. I simply made it large and put it on the wall in contour-cut vinyl. Working with organizer Jason Stevens, I designed the ballots that guests used to vote for ten top posters out of the 25 finalists.

It was a great concept and a fantastic event—all to benefit The Home for Little Wanderers. Kudos to all the finalists and winners, the volunteers, and to Jason!

The super talented photographer Ben Gebo shot these photos from the event, and more.

Ben was also, incidentally, the photographer for the event I organized for Friday night, the AIGA BoNE Show’s “Meet the Judges” event. Check them out.

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