Panels II- Printing

Printing began this week. We don't want to give too much away just yet, but so far progress is good. Panels are being printed using Adobe Illustrator and the HP DesignJet 800PS. At approximately 1 minute per megabite (Post Script processing speed), we estimate a total printing time of around 33 hours. Luckily, most jobs can be set to run over night and on weekends. Keep checking back for more updates.

Panels I - Construction

Before moving your materials into your printing and laminating space, make sure to clean dust and particles off with a brush and/or vaccum. These these little specks can contaminate other "clean" machinery (computers, printers etc.) or get laminated over top of, leaving small bumps on your finished product.


To ensure straight clean cuts, concentrate on the fence, not the blade. Pressure should be exerted on the diagonal towards the fence to the right of the blade. Feeding from the opposite side can cause binding, over-reaching and wobble.


Make sure that your measurements are accurate, and use a rip fence and the factory edge to produce square corners and straight sides. Feed all materials through the blade to the other side.


It also helps to have a pair of extra hands when cutting large materials. Set your blade so that the gullets between the teeth are at the same height as the top of the material.



With large pieces of material, it is very helpful to have something to act as side and through supports. Here we improvised with overturned material carts, boosted to height with scrap wood and held in place with cinder blocks. Please plan your cuts well, keep your space clean, check your access and movement and review safety guidelines.
Panel construction began this week. For "Cold War Berlin" panels are being designed using Adobe Illustrator with a combination of historic photographs, original text and graphics, and custom colours. On of the most important aspects to exhibit development in public institutions is budget, and for construction, that means maximizing use of material. Our substrate, white Gatorfoam, comes in 4' x 8' sheets. Our original panel dimensions were 2' x 3', but were adjusted very slightly to allow for the kerf of the table saw blade (1/8"). AI documents are easily resized before printing, laminating and mounting. Excess material will be used for smaller panels, labels etc.

Sign Vinyl & Stencils III

To add more detail and atmosphere to the rooms, several more memorable and/or common border area signs were reproduced using sign vinyl.

Where applicable, fonts were matched or photos were modified using "Live Trace" in AI to produce a workable stencil file. The lines have been thickened for easier viewing. Files must be "clean" (i.e. solid workable lines, without ghosting etc.) to be properly cut with the CAMM-1.

Below are several of the finished stencils which will be place above doorways throughout the exhibit. The effect is quite good.





My personal favourite...


The "Cold War Berlin" logo was also reproduced in this fashion using AI and the Roland CAMM-1. Overall, these pieces will build on the atmosphere of divided Berlin and help to transport visitors to that time and place. I was very pleased with the look of this piece, and after a number of modifications in AI, it was cut out without incident.


Colours must be printed separately and assembled later when using a sign vinyl cutter. More to follow...

Cases I

Every exhibition will require cases to safely house museum artifacts on display. Cases not only provide physical protection from vibration, physical force, handling and theft, but also provide a buffer for temperature and R.H. (relative humidity) during swings in the display environment. For and excellent resource on everything exhibit case, you should look up the "Exhibit Conservation Guidelines: Incorporating Conservation Into Exhibit Planning, Design and Production" by Toby Raphael at the National Parks Service.

We were lucky enough to obtain several professional grade cases second hand from the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation via the Diefenbunker. Once every few years, larger institutions will sell-off or dispose of old cases which are perfectly fine for exhibits on a budget. Take advantage.

In the coming months, we will be discussing case modifications including: construction, painting, lining/sealing and mounts. Keep checking back.

Working relationships and sources.

Develop your contacts! Exhibitions require historic photographs, videos, graphics etc. to present the topic in ways that words cannot do. Copyrights require large sums of money so any contacts that you can make along the way will greatly increase your chances of excellence. Contacts are also great for artifact acquisition/loans, material discounts and outsourcing.

Photos

With a few well placed calls,
one can begin a working
relationship that can provide
many excellent sources for images.



Some possible sources are:
- Local museum personnel
- Instructors/professors
- Historians
- Embassies
- International Museums


Videos
If you are looking for sources of digital video, you can try broadcasters, but be prepared to pay up to $20/second! Instead, check out sources like Archive.org where such material can be obtained for little more than proper citation.

Materials
Take advantage of any all possible contacts to obtain materials at the best possible price. Talk to relatives/family in paint/hardware/lumber businesses, friends with scanners and printers etc. You'd be surprised how many people you know can provide help or advice of some kind.

The important thing is to get out into your local museum community and work/volunteer with other professionals. Its not what you know (well, it is to some extent), but its who you know. One leads to many and soon you will have many sources for affordable and/or free rights images, videos etc.

Research

The objective of any museum exhibition should be to tell a story. More than that, the story must present accurate historical information to ensure quality education, public and peer respect and true facts. One must take care when preparing information for an exhibit by using a wide array of sources, including primary and secondary sources, films, books etc. Find out what both sides have to say, and read as much as you can! Start here.

The first step should be the development of a curatorial essay. This will allow the team to discover historical facts, interesting sub-themes and the like, as well as develop their interest and knowledge of the subject. This blog will not describe how to write an essay. However, writing skills are essential and will become extremely useful throughout the entire process. The curatorial essay will lead to topics for the exhibit, development of common threads and of background.

Once your essay has gone through several edits and permutations(check here for tips), you can begin developing a storyline or storyboard to start turning words on paper into tangible information via panels, cases, artifacts etc. To follow...

Maquette Making

Perhaps the most important weapon in a planner's arsenal, the maquette, or scale model, of the planned exhibition space will allow the team to test colours, graphics, layout, panel sizes and much more.

Rough mock-up of space.


Maquette- Floorplan
Obtaining blueprints of your proposed space, or taking simple measurements is the place to start.
Decide on a scale that is appropriate to your exhibit space. For example, if you have a large open space that is 40 feet long, do not use 1:10 because you maquette will be 4 feet long. You want something manageable, but that will be easy to work with and big enough to show some detail and get your point across.

Maquette- Materials
The most common materials used in maquette construction are Gatorfoam, Foam-cor, light woods (balsa) and some plastics. The best way to get started is by calculating your total wall length. Once this number is obtained, figure out your wall height and cut out continuous strips of material on a table saw so that all of your walls are exactly the same height. Of course, make sure to check your material for square.

Maquette- Construction
Use simple materials and common tools. The goal of a maquette isn't to build a full exhibit in scale, but to create a planning tool. Test colours and paint your walls. Make sure all doorways, windows, and architectural features are represented in proper scale. This will allow you to test panel sizes, layout, case sizes etc.

Maquette- Panels and Furniture
Again, the goal of a maquette is planning. Use mat board, plastic sheet, round and tubes (available at hobby stores) to make scale show cases and features to discover flow and accessibility issues. For panels, simple rectangles cut to scale will suffice, however, it does add a lot if you have some preliminary design work done, which can be printed onto scale pieces. If you want to go a little to far, you can create "gravity wedges" to hang your scale panels and move them as needed.