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John --
 
Other responders have made some great points. A rather introspective  
observation has some bearing on this subject, too. I remember taking my son  and 
father to a museum gallery, partly because I remembered some 18  years before how 
excited I was by the screen printed graphics on  fine-grained wood exhibit 
cases -- they were almost as interesting as the  artifacts on display. The three 
of us arrived and all reacted with a sort of  "well, THIS is what we came to 
see?" (actually, no, but read on) The graphics  and cases were just as clean 
and bright as they had been at my first viewing,  but the style was tired and 
the color and kind of the wood wasn't part of  the current popular design 
vernacular. Recently, the gallery was closed for  renovation. My guess is the cases 
and graphics will be done over in a style that  will be just as fresh as the 
others were originally and just as dated in another  18 years. BUT (as hinted 
at parenthetically above) the contents of the exhibits  were the REAL draw for 
me and the generation above and below mine. We quickly  lost interest in the 
window dressing (maybe it was good the graphics had become  tired) and spent a 
couple of hours poring over the collections and sparingly  type-set labels.
 
This topic is such an engaging part of exhibit and museum design that we  
could spend all of our time on it and never have to bother with the content of  
the exhibits. Maybe, somehow, we could make it the subject of an interactive  
exhibit! I'd visit.
 
Wishing you the best of luck and design,
 
Charlie
 
Charles Stout
Media Arts Manager
Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum

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