Charles Lapworth is one of the most iconic figures from the University of Birmingham. Thousands of people visit the Lapworth Museum of Geology every year to marvel at the state-of-the-art galleries, interactive exhibits … and for a selfie op with the T. rex!
When the Lapworth Museum came to Creative Media with an exhibit brief, our design team were thrilled at the opportunity to showcase their skills for the museum’s visitors.
The Brief
Rachel, an archivist at the University of Birmingham, had been working on archiving Lapworth’s extensive papers for the past year. She was aided by a team of volunteers. Her ultimate goal was to shape these materials into the exhibit: ‘Exploring Lapworth’s Legacy’.
The Story
Rachel provided Alice with a presentation on Lapworth’s life, illustrated with the archival materials. Alice picked out keywords, imagery, and colours from the materials to create the look and feel of the exhibit. She used a window motif throughout the exhibit to evoke a ‘window into the life’ feel. Throughout the concept stage, Alice kept in close contact with Rachel. The two exchanged ideas before settling on the design that can now be visited at the museum.
Proximity is a virtue, and we couldn’t have gotten luckier with this brief as the Lapworth Museum is based just a few yards from our office! Our designer, Alice, was able to pop in to the exhibit space frequently to judge size, lighting and dimensions.
Learnings
As much of the photography from Lapworth’s archives was archaic, Alice was concerned about blowing-up the images for the exhibit. Luckily, our in-house Print team were on hand for test runs. After observing an early print sample, Alice concluded it was best to enhance the photography with additional pixels.
Alice learned a lot about working in exhibition spaces. The light (or lack thereof) in a space will have a dramatic impact on the appearance of design work, so it was a huge advantage to have the opportunity to tour the space ourselves.
Rachel was thrilled with the exhibit and we were delighted to be invited to the launch event in January. Working on this project really rocked (pun intended).
