Most museum display cases invite visitors to compare similar things. Occasionally, though, you’ll encounter two objects in a case that don’t appear to be similar at all, but it’s no accident they are together. …

When most people imagine creating a museum object case layout, they might think of somebody arranging artifacts until the composition looks good visually. But visual arrangement isn't where experience design really starts. …

Visitors do not only look at what we give them to look at. If only. Case in point: the visible exit problem. All of us humans automatically, subconsciously, and constantly scan for obvious ways out from the spaces we are in. …

[Ominous music] You walk into the gallery one morning and discover that something firmly attached yesterday is now hanging by one corner. Or broken on the floor. Adhesives are wonderful. But they are dependent on many invisible things …

Why do our visitors come back? Often, because we have “something new.” But not every kind of “new” works this way. A whole new temporary exhibition can be an event. A single rotated object might be “new,” but not in the same way. …

Everybody loves a good Venn diagram. You kinda can’t go wrong throwing one on a slide. (You know, those easily drawn, disarmingly simple overlapping circle diagrams that show the relationship between ideas, priorities, or categories.) …

Maybe you’ve heard someone in a museum exhibition meeting say something like, "Let's run this through IPOP." (Especially if that someone came from a Smithsonian museum or affiliate.) And maybe you wondered: what’s IPOP? …

How do you build a museum? Jamē Anderson, Monteil Crawley, Sarah Ghorbanian, and Chris Wood from SmithGroup discuss “Building a Museum: This is Not a Manual” (the New Book), with MtM host Jonathan Alger (C&G Partners). …

Ready for a fun, quick test? Every field has words that sound strange from the outside. Some are technical. Some sound completely made up. But they are real words we all use to plan, design, build, install, and maintain exhibitions. …

Scope creep is the gradual, unacknowledged expansion of work beyond what was originally agreed upon, without corresponding official changes to the budget, schedule, or expectations. Scope creep is not just “the project getting bigger.” …

A tight timeline is one of the most common causes of project stress. Deadlines are approaching. Teams are overlapping. People are working late. Everything is compressed and urgent. But “tight timeline” can mean different things. …

Exhibitions have a constant tension. Are we giving information? Or creating engagement? Of course, the answer is, “Both! Duh.” But let’s dive into that, because “both” isn’t a thorough answer either. Imagine an Information/Engagement Spectrum. …

“Double-loaded gallery” is a term we use in the studio. It’s when exhibits or displays are placed equally on both sides of a long gallery or hallway. (We stole it from architecture, where “double-loaded corridor” means doors constantly on both sides.) …

In exhibition projects, we hear “best practices” all the time. The phrase sounds reassuring. Proven. Settled. As if someone out there has already figured out the very best way. Trouble is, it’s not true. The underlying concept is useful, though. …

Some exhibitions focus mainly on reading. That’s okay. Most visitors don’t come to read. But sometimes words work. And in those cases, low-tech interactive elements can help make the experience more engaging. …

In big box stores, “destination department placement” is the strategy of putting high-demand items far from the entrance, so customers have to walk past everything else to reach them. This is also known as “back-of-store anchoring” …

There is a pattern that shows up in almost every exhibition project. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. At the very beginning of a project, you can change almost anything. Layout. Storyline. Budget. Media ideas. The overall concept. But then …

What books could you study to learn exhibition design? There isn’t just one textbook for the field. Many show up in courses and offices. And because tech, culture, and practice continue to change, new editions are always of interest. …

Today, the second moment when text-to-image AI can now help: mid-design pre-rendering. After the early concept phase, something important happens for any team using 3D software: the digital white model …

If you ask exhibition teams what 3D software they use, you’ll get many answers. Our software world is mixed. But after a while, you start to notice the same names coming up. Three in particular: …