Graphic and Shelving Hanging Systems

One of the items that I see more often in proposals and designs are cable display systems.  These can be fairly slick and elegant ways of displaying artwork or graphics, and even merchandise.

Most of the products I have used have come from Arakawa Hanging Systems.  There are many options out there though - I have often thought that the next time I do a cover the walls exhibit at USITT that it would be cool to use some of this equipment for the display.

Displays - Banners, Lightboxes & More...

Alpina Manufacturing has a good range of products that allow you to display graphics on walls or stands very easily, and the frame easily opens to allow you to insert a graphic - and they are economical.

Displays2go.com is one of my default places to look for sign frames, iPad holders, and even light boxes.  You could probably outfit an entire booth from this company.

For additional Slim Light boxes check out:
Blue River Digital
Lighboxes.com
Environmental Lights

Note that depending on how you are using the light box you might need to check out the fabrication. Most thin boxes lit by wrapping LED's around the perimeter.  On many smaller sizes this is fine. And if you engrave the Acrylic it produces a really nice effect, though obviously different than lighting a graphic.  On larger boxes, places light environmental lights custom builds the light box with proprietary engraving patterns on the real of the acrylic to ensure that the light box is evenly lit throughout the whole surface of the product.

Museum Men

I have been watching a new show on the History Channel called “Museum Men”.  It’s about a small custom fabrication (design/build) shop in Florida that builds (at least primarily) museum exhibits.  In some ways the shop is very much like what I work in, and it is interesting to see how projects play out in their shop. 

On the flip side, the show brings up a number of concerns (which I am sure is true for every industry that is boiled down to a short reality tv series).

                -Their timeline from project initiation to installation is about a month.  At times it seems as though they have a month of fabrication time, either way, this isn’t very realistic or practical.

                -How the content is developed seems a little odd.  Perhaps we just aren’t seeing the nuts and bolts here, but the show goes from a conversation about an element, to going forward full steam.  In fact in an episode about building Chuck Yeager’s Supersonic Jet, they were half way through building the piece when the owner comes in with goods news and bad news.  Good – they client was spending more money, bad – they jet is too large and a new piece needs to be built and installed with only the remaining 2 weeks that had been previously scheduled.  Seems like the client is paying extra to have the jet redone- but this seems like a pretty major detail that should have been worked out on paper before anything was built. 

                -Drawings and research, as well as what is being delivered seems to be at the owner’s discretion.  Once thy wondered if the jet could be installed upside down?  Even if the unit is a design build contract, the client should be signing off on something – including what it will be and look like once it is installed.  It seems like they move forward into construction before they even know all of the details about what they are constructing.

                -Perhaps a few all night work calls still exists in the industry – but showing the tight timelines and then encouraging these work practices doesn’t really help clients understand what we can reasonably accomplish. 

                -And a 1 hour load in is just a little crazy. 

I can only hope that the bigger picture is edited out, but I am left with a connotation that it shouldn’t take more than a month to design, build, and install a major piece of exhibition scenery, which is not really feasible.  Now there are a couple of things to note – they do mention not taking on much additional work – it does seem like they primarily work on one project at a time.  Whether bad or good it is interesting to see some of their processes and get an inside look!

Creative Arts Tampa Bay Times

Museum Audio

Alcorn McBride has a brief how to on a way to set up audio and lighting activated by a switch for exhibitry.

Perhaps impractical, it makes me wonder if you could use this to mimic scenes and lighting in models.

For what I am currently working on, I am pricing the "telephone" audio playback that so many museums employ - where to hear specific audio content, a guest picks up the phone and listens to the audio file.

Museum Tools is probably the way that I will proceed, and I will use the handset as a contact closure.

Fake Tree Bark

In theatre the final method of construction of a piece depends on a variety of details. One issue is how labor is paid for. Is it salary, and thus doing something labor intensive is okay? Is it hourly, but out of a budget that doesn't impact show budgets or does the amount of labor used directly effect the budget of a production. In some theatre settings, and in the commercial shop I work in, it is often cheaper to buy something than it is to fabricate it. Thus for a recent project we looked at using flexible bark. The pieces were pricey at about $600 a sheet, but for us to manufacture something similar in house would cost more. Between labor and materials - for us to match the 600 price we would have to be able to mold / carve / paint / and do any sampling for the piece in about 3 hours. There is of course a exception. In the case above we would use less than a sheet. If we were to cover a stage full of trees, economy of scale would probably reverse this. In this case, I would look at it from both directions - the cost of buying premade pieces versus fabricating in house. Once the size is large enough, it makes more sense for us to fabricate. A good example of this is a urethane brick that we have made for some museum exhibits. It's very realistic, and very durable - much more so than vacuform or the wood paneling, and we can easily make it wrap corners. But it was economical because the prototyping, testing, and development was dispersed due to the amount of coverage. All in all, price wise we were right in line with other suppliers, but achieved a better quality of product.

Earth Flora also has a realistic bark for sale, but not as many options and a much smaller size. The question becomes with using these is how you handle seams.

Metal Museum

The Metal Museum in Memphis, TN, would make a great visit if you are ever in the area. They also offer classes if you could make your visit last a few days.

Costumer Exhibit

Christian Lacroix, a costume designer, has an exhibit on display in the National Museum of Singapore. The above link will take you too a blog entry that has a few photographs of his work, from his many years designing for theatre and opera. The museums web site can be seen here. They have additional photographs of the exhibit.

While I don't see myself going to Singapore anytime soon, I think it is great when theatrical and opera design work is shown in exhibitions.