Dynamic Signage System, Boston, MA, 2009

The MFA dynamic signage system consists of three distinct forms. All three signs draw on the same daily XML feed, populated by Sitebots. Each screen displays an overlapping but specific set of content, tailored to its form and location in the museum. The signs primarily serve to promote current and upcoming events and exhibitions at the MFA. It also welcomes visitors to the museum, advertises for memberships, and serves as a billboard for general announcements.

The installation located at the Sharf Information Center is comprised of seven LCD screens run by networked computers. This sign uses letterforms based on the MFA logo along with vivid colors and images to show all exhibitions and events available at the museum on the current day. At less frequent intervals, it shows highlights from the museum collection as well as a welcome screen with the MFA logo. The sign is designed to provide an exciting overview of "Today at the MFA" and spark visitors' interest in the museum's offerings. While it does not replace the printed brochure or calendar, it provides enough detailed information for a visitor to find and participate in selected exhibitions and events.

The Huntington reception desk sign is similar in form to the Sharf sign, with some additional information and restrictions. The sign is five screens wide and displays the list of current exhibitions, showing only those above a certain priority. Every forty five seconds, an exhibition is highlighted in the foreground, with a probability based on its priority level. Flanking this list—and shown at all times—are the current time, the day's operation hours, general admission prices, ticketed exhibition prices, and the name of the current ticketed exhibition. Displayed at the bottom of each screen is a staff label, whose contents can be set with the keyboard connected to the sign, which indicates the current function of the associated desk position. 

A single portrait screen is positioned at both the Fenway and Huntington entrances of the museum. These screens run indentical software and serve to welcome visitors to the museum and pique their interest about current exhibitions. The pylons alternates between a welcome screen, which also shows the museum's hours of operation for the day, and a selected exhibition. Only exhibitions of a high priority level are shown on these signs.

Project Details

Donor Recognition System, Ann Arbor, MI, 2009

The Donor Recognition System for the Cardiovascular Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is an animated presentation of hospital donors, and serves as a recognition of those who have helped to make the Michigan Difference.

The system is comprised of two computers running custom software with four large LCD displays that present the animated program to staff and visitors of the Hospital. An iPod Touch serves as a remote control for the system.

The animations present each donor name, appearing as a circle of text, which bursts like a bubble, spinning the letters away. As the letters drift about, new donor names appear briefly before they, too, burst. Over time, the letters come together into a formal layout of the donor's name, which then drifts down the displays and fades away.

Occasionally, a donor name appears in another form. Shafts of light play down the displays and, from the bottom of one display, a donor name emerges and "swims" away to explore the Donor Wall displays. After a bit, the words regroup and formally present the donor's name. The words stay in formation for several moments, before a cluster of donor names burst apart, and the startled words swim quickly off the top of the displays. These names are larger than the other donor names, and they represent donors who have given a greater contribution, or who have otherwise been selected for special treatment.

The presentation proceeds at a stately pace, presenting names throughout the day and night. After all of the donors have been presented, a new cycle begins to present each name once again. Although all the names are presented each cycle, each presentation is unique in its own little way.

Project Details

Irish College, Leuven, Belgium, 2009

The Irish Colleges scattered around mainland Europe were set up to educate Catholics from Ireland in their own religion following the takeover of the country by the Protestant English state in the Tudor re-conquest of Ireland.

In the last decade, the Irish Government has financed the renovation of the premises of the Irish College in Leuven which now serves as an Irish Cultural Centre and a residence for Irish students, writers and artists. SDF was commissioned to place several informative touch screen installations and artworks around the newly renovated center to teach visitors about Irish history and its diaspora culture.

An interactive map orients new visitors to the Irish College buildings, historical objects, and new exhibits in the lobby. Overhead is a large robotic chandelier comprised of 26 gold leaf letters that rotate throughout the day. At any one time, the letters will form a legible word as seen from either the entrance or main hall of the College. The two words Ireland and Europe, in the three languages of English, Gaelic, and Dutch, and seen from two possible angles create twelve possible configurations of the sculpture.

In a cloistered seating area of the College there is an interactive book that contains excerpts from several rare Manuscripts. These were ancient books scribed and copied by Fransciscan monks that inhabited the College centuries ago. Near the old entrance is a large touchscreen that describes the Irish College's foundation and features King Philip of Spain's letter granting permission for the college to be established.

Near the entrance to the Chapel is a four screen interactive that provides insight into the intertwined histories of Ireland and Europe at the time of the Irish College's foundation and in the centuries that followed. It particularly focuses on the men and women who migrated from Ireland to Continental Europe.

Project Details

Period Rooms Touchscreen, New York, NY, 2009

Small Design Firm was initially engaged to create a master plan for technology use in the American Wing. This led to the development of a number of project concepts: Period Room interactives, Elevator display, and the re-design of all printed signs and labels in the new wing.

The Period Rooms tour in the American Wing offers visitors to the Met a way to view decorative arts in their original context. These rooms are meticulously researched and reconstructed, but limitations in space did not allow for traditional printed signage . In response to the curatorial need for explanatory signage, Small Design Firm developed a railing-mounted touchscreen interactive to display a wealth of information about the rooms and the objects within them.

The screens present visitors with the provenance of the room, a brief history of the people who lived in it, curatorial information on the furnishings and objects in the room, and an explanation of how the room was moved from its original location and reconstructed within the museum. The interface is simple and can be used by visitors of all ages. Content is arranged as a horizontal scroll; sliding a finger across the screen slides this content forward and back. In addition, a three dimensional silhouette of each object in the room can be touched to bring up its object label. Users can zoom in on specific images, play videos, and flip certain cards to show more detailed content.

In the New York Times' review of the renovated American Wing, they made special mention of these interactives:

"Also new, and well worth a try, are some of the best digital displays I’ve seen in any museum. With a brush of the finger on a touch screen you get information about the room’s original location, about the people who lived in it and about the history of its display at the Met, along with data about individual objects on view."

From ‘Made in U.S.A.’ Shines After Makeover by Holland Cotter published May 22, 2009.

We are currently at about the halfway mark and will install further signs and interactive displays as the painting galleries are renovated and reopen in about two years.

Project Details

Wayshowing and Elevator Display, New York, NY, 2009

Small Design Firm was initially engaged to create a master plan for technology in the American Wing. This led to the development of a number of project concepts: Period Room interactives, Elevator display, and the re-design of all printed signs and labels in the new wing.

A central element of the renovation of the American Wing is a striking glass elevator. Four unique visitor experiences are organized around this elevator. They include the Period Rooms tour, the Paintings and Sculpture Galleries, the Courtyard Balconies, and Visible Storage. Small Design Firm developed a series of digital and physical signs in and around this glass elevator to explain these unique experiences and offer visitors a clear way of moving through the space.

Hallway screens outside the elevator use graphic animations, along with images and text, to present visitors with an overview of the wing and how they might move through it. A separate screen gives a more detailed description of the Period Rooms and supporting galleries. Inside the elevator cab, a three dimensional model of the wing moves synchronously with the elevator, giving the visitor an X-ray view into each floor.

A master three-dimensional map was designed to be used on both the physical and digital signage. Axonometric and plan versions of the map are used on physical maps to describe each floor and experiential section. The same axonometric map is used on the digital signs flanking the elevator to describe possible paths through each experience. A persistent table of contents is always visible on the left hand cab screen to aid visitors as they choose which floor to begin on.

Project Details

Wayshowing System, New York, NY, 2009

Small Design Firm was initially engaged to create a master plan for technology use in the American Wing. This led to the development of a number of project concepts: Period Room interactives, Elevator display, and the re-design of all printed signs and labels in the new wing.

Small Design Firm led the design and implementation of a comprehensive wayshowing system for the recently renovated American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This system defines the organization of signage in the wing at all scales and gives the entire wing a consistent way of displaying information to the visitor. A single set of layout standards and design rules apply to both printed labels and digital and interactive screens. This system was developed with Timon Botez, César Sesio and Juliette Cezzar, and is flexible enough to handle a wide variety of curatorial content. The signs are divided into three primary categories: object labels, overview panels, and navigational signs. Steel or aluminum channels accept printed labels that can be easily replaced. The seamless transition between printed and digital signage helps to unify content within the wing and eliminates typical barriers between old and new technologies.

We are currently at about the halfway mark and will install further signs and interactive displays as the painting galleries are renovated and reopen in 2011.

Project Details

Pledge Wall, Washington DC, 2009

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has been an activist force for genocide prevention and the education of world leaders since it's dedication in 1993. To further engage with the community and raise awareness of ongoing threats of genocide today the museum has just opened a new exhibition named From Memory To Action. The material in the exhibit picks up where the permanent exhibition ends, chronicalling instances of genocide since the Holocaust, and examining the world's reactions to them.

The goal of the exhibit is to show visitors that individuals have made a difference in each case of genocide that has occurred, and they will continue to have an impact in all future conflicts. Visitors are asked "What will you do to help end the threat of genocide today?" and to write their responses on cards given out in the room. Their pledges are captured using real ink pens with digital sensors in them, and then shown projected on a wall, joining the thousands of other pledges made by other museum visitors (both online and physical).

This project was a collaboration between Small Design Firm, C+G Partners, Potion Design, Upstatement, and CornerStone Exhibits.

Project Details

The Boisterous Sea of Liberty, Monticello, Charlottesville, VA, 2009

The Boisterous Sea is an interactive narrative installation about Thomas Jefferson's ideas on Liberty and the history through which they developed. A collage of twenty one high definition flat panels are arranged along a curve in layered fashion, at certain times and locations functioning as one big continuous display, and at other times as individual screens on which content is contained. The organizational scheme of both the physical screens and content was designed to support two types of viewing: a passive watching of the large scale narrative from the far side of the room and a more interactive up close viewing of the details near the touchscreens.

Organized into roughly thirteen chapters and four sections, high resolution paintings, documents, illustrations, and quotations from Jefferson and his contemporaries float and settle onto the upper screens. Each chapter and section is ushered in by the stroke of Jefferson's pen, which unravels to release a rich collection of images and words. Each chapter contains a set of approximately twenty 'droplets', short autonomous pieces of text and images meant to fill in the details of the upper narrative. As the big pictures plays out on top, bits of typography rain steadily down, forming concise titles shortly after appearing on the lower screens. Visitors are invited to touch any of these droplets. Doing so produces a small explosion of letters, which mechanically arrange themselves onto a white panel, and are joined by a supporting image.

The presentation includes a three-channel soundtrack of music and environmental sounds commissioned for the piece. The music is instrumental in telling the story of the Boisterous Sea, underscoring the historical mood in each chapter and guiding visitors through the overall progression. Each touchscreen also has an associated speaker that plays back sound effects tied to the interactions.

Project Details

Reception Desk, Boston, MA, 2007

SDF created the dynamic video signage in the lobby of the new Institute of Contemporary Arts in Boston. The display informs visitors of artworks on exhibition and all current events in the building. The signage elements are automatically generated from the institute's online calender of events and the sign determines which content to display based on the current time and the day's programming.

The sign is composed of six 45" LCD screens and functions as one continuous display surface.

Project Details

Nobel Peace Center, Oslo, Norway, 2005

Small Design Firm was selected to help design and implement four large interactive installations for the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway. The Nobel Field, honoring each Laureate, is an illuminated garden of LCD displays, LED grass, and sound that responds to your movements through the space. To honor the life of Alfred Nobel, we designed the Nobel Chamber, housing an interactive book in the spirit of our Illuminated Manuscript. The third installation, the Wallpapers, is a continuous display surface of 68 million pixels, designed to allow visitors to further explore the life, work, and legacy of the Nobel Laureates. Finally, we designed the ambient sound and light for the Register, an abstract map of the world that serves as a gateway to the Center.

These interactives were a collaboration between Small Design Firm, Timon Botez and the London architects Adjaye/Associates.

Project Details