Time to build your exhibition. But wait! Before you build a single wall … order a single mount … send a single graphic to print … do me a favor. Hold a page-turner meeting. Consider it the final step before fabrication begins. …

MONIQUE: That exhibition this morning felt like a $1 show. PHIL: Were we on the same tour? That felt like $5,000,000. MONIQUE: Exactly. You were thinking total cost. I was thinking cost per visitor. PHIL: What? …

Will you be in Los Angeles next week, for the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) 2025 annual conference, May 6-9?  Are you involved in exhibitions in any capacity? Then you’ll want to know about this event. …

If you are like most folks working in exhibitions today, you might use the terms typeface and font interchangeably. But they’re not the same. Knowing which is which will make your projects better. …

What can we learn from one of the most complex AI projects in any museum today? Kimberly Beaudin and Geoff Thatcher discuss “A Museum Transformed with AI” with host Jonathan Alger. …

PHIL: If only museums had this many guests. (Sips chamomile tea.) MONIQUE: Museums don’t have guests. PHIL: What? MONIQUE: (Sips Americano.) They have visitors. PHIL: Guest sounds better. MONIQUE: But it’s not true. …

QR codes in exhibition labels are a communication medium, akin to footnotes in a book—optional, often overlooked, but potentially transformative if used well. Like any medium, they have pros and cons. …

Journalists write news articles according to what’s called the “inverted pyramid” style, where the lead paragraph contains all the key information readers must know. The summary is the first paragraph, not the last. …

Don’t know the term “LBE”? No worries. It’s just that … you probably make it for a living. “LBE” stands for “location based entertainment.” LBE is any form of entertainment outside the home, based in a particular location. …

QR codes continue their extended renaissance in museums (and in museum conference slides). BTW, QR codes are older than we think. They were invented a generation ago to track parts on Japanese assembly lines. …

At the moment, we Americans are debating many things. And clearly, the most important national debate of them all is still whether we should all say “exhibition design” or “experience design.” (Rolls eyes.) But meanwhile …

This might seem a little crazy. But stick with me. Spending is good. Exhibition and experience project budgets are meant to be spent. We acquired our budget to use it. The more we spend, the more we get. …

The excellent people at the Matters of Experience podcast had me on the show to talk about exhibition projects, leading a design studio, and intentionally working with clients who scare you a little at first. (Yes, we also talked about AI.) …

Longtime readers know there are only five ways (!!) to organize exhibition information. But knowing how to organize doesn’t tell us how much to organize. When the quantity of exhibition content is essentially endless, where do we stop? …

If I had a dollar for every time I had to talk someone out of still trying to use a projector in a bright exhibition space, I’d have … many dollars. Anyway, it happens a lot. Despite our optimism that it will work anyway. Here’s why it won’t. (Ever.) …

What’s “program” mean? This will be easy. Let’s ask around the museum. Developer: “Programs” are the code we write for computers. Educator: No, “programs” are our tours and classes. Event Manager: What? “Programs” are our handouts. …

What if the secret to better museums was … neuroscience? Lynda Roscoe Hartigan (Executive Director and CEO of the Peabody Essex Museum) discusses “Creating Effective Museum Experiences” with host Jonathan Alger (C&G Partners). …

Here’s a thought that’s crazy but true: an exhibition is a communication medium you can walk through. Unlike almost any other channel of communication, exhibitions are dimensional. And the audience is physically inside the channel. …

Tropes don’t only appear in a genre. They define the genre. Here are five from museum exhibitions: #1. The Systematic Rail.
Three feet off the ground. Keeps visitors from the displays. Often has information perched on it. Now, #2 …

Exhibition planning meeting running low on bold ideas? Here‘s a simple trick: as a thought exercise, ask some disaster questions, like, “What if we could only exhibit one thing? How would we make it amazing?” Now, why not do that anyway? …