Museum and Exhibition Services
Master Planning & Project Management
Master planning and project management services can be scaled to fit any size project and will be customized to fit your needs.
PHASE 1 DISCOVERY
We’ll start with a conversation where we listen to what you and your visitors need and then create a viable and fundable plan – together. We’ll review your institutional assets, resources and collections, we’ll explore potential program partnerships, and run facilitated workshops with staff, volunteers and supporters to determine suitable experiential objectives.
PHASE 2 DELIVERY
We’ll focus in on solutions by creating project schedules, budget plans, visitor flow analyses, and preliminary concepts for impactful exhibition storylines with meaningful themes and programming options. There are limitless ways to work collectively to review, plan, and report – the options listed below can be run independently or as part of an integrated suite of services.
Strategic & Forward Planning
Working with your Board of Directors, staff, volunteers, and supporters, our team can help you to define where you are today and determine where you want to go in the future. This dynamic process results in a S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Based) action plan that defines agreed-upon priorities and goals with methods to evaluate institutional success.
Integrated Program Planning
Together, we can create an integrated program plan that weaves educational initiatives and performing arts events into your annual program offerings. This contemporary cultural approach offers your communities many ways to engage with your site and galleries. By establishing 1-, 3- and 5-Year plans you can maximize funding support and build repeat visitors from engaged multi-generational audiences.
Project Management
Our team of Project Managers have managed dozens of projects of all shapes and sizes – we can offer complete logistical support for your exhibition, program, and special projects as well as provide project management training and templating packages for your team. Using international best practices, we’re with you from concept to completion, with a commitment to your budget, timelines, and expectations.
Program Evaluation & Visitor Analysis
Often described as “the critical difference between museum intent and visitor experience,” our evaluation is designed to improve overall program quality. With a custom approach to data collection and analysis, as well as a review of visitor satisfaction, we will present a qualitative and quantitative report that suggests solutions and lessons as guidance for future programs while respecting your institution’s mission.
Concept Development & Interpretive Planning
In our experience, we have seen many museums running their exhibition programs with passionate, productive, lean teams. As such, our clients often express a need for curatorial assistance and support. We have curators, interpretive planners, educators, and content researchers on our team who can offer varying degrees of assistance from project concept through to content-specific research and gallery text writing.
Concept Development
The concept for an exhibition is the bright spark at the centre of the project where learning objectives are woven into a big idea. By focussing on the visitor experience, we work with our clients to nurture themes and develop the story into an immersive gallery experience. Our team is practiced at workshopping, brainstorming, and envisioning “wow” moments.
Content Development
As researchers, writers, and curators ourselves, we know how difficult it is to present deep knowledge in a substantial yet accessible manner. Our content developers can unravel the electric jumble of ideas generated in launch meetings to tease out meaning and rich storylines. Our content management database brings order to core research, object details, and image files allowing developers to focus on storytelling. We recognize that it is important to offer as many multi-lingual and accessible learning opportunities as possible and we can source suitable translation services, images, and even artifacts to enhance an exhibition.
Interpretive Planning
We understand that there are hundreds of ways for your diverse audiences to learn from objects and that visitors arrive in your galleries with unique sets of experiences and expectations. As interpretive planners, we appreciate how sincerely the various learning styles need to be supported and we work to make meaning relevant by activating genuine connections between the audience, the objects, and the information. Interpretation is an active field and our team stays current with new thinking and established best practice.
Exhibition Text Writing
Our writers and learning specialists can offer research, writing, and editing of a complete suite of gallery texts, including: Introduction, Section Headings, Subsection Texts, Call to Action moments, and Object Labels. Using proven techniques and powerful language, we can work together to produce content that will capture and engage your visitors giving them a dynamic and memorable learning experience.
Exhibition & Experience Design
Our team has completed over 1000 custom design projects of varying sizes and has over 25 years of experience working collaboratively with our clients to bring objects and stories to life in permanent, temporary, and travelling exhibitions. We enjoy crafting immersive visitor-centric experiences and creating spaces where curiosity can thrive. We embrace innovative, creative, and practical solutions to the challenge of storytelling in a gallery. We’re architects, designers, educators, historians, and interpretive planners but most importantly, we’re all museum-goers.
Exhibition & Graphic Design
The design journey starts with a launch meeting to define the project’s intent while establishing your expectations and objectives. From there we create concepts that evolve with your feedback through to a final design. Our 2D and 3D designers understand how to tailor space, colour, imagery, and text into an exhibition that clearly communicates key learning outcomes to a diverse community of visitors. We can also provide graphic design services to update established galleries with new content.
Interactive Planning & Design
We believe that curiosity is the most powerful thing that visitors bring to any exhibition, so we reward that by integrating meaningful interactives into our designs. Interactivity doesn’t need to be expensive or complicated, instead it is best used to make complex content easier to understand, more accessible, and to offer deeper meaning through action and participation. Our team is comfortable designing a broad spectrum of interactives from simple hands-on activities through to complex digital installations.
Multimedia Design & Integration
Today’s museum visitors want media experiences that are varied, unexpected, imaginative, and that expand their experience beyond the gallery. We integrate multimedia and digital content into our exhibition designs, from simple audio-visual layers through to full digital engagement and virtual spaces. Whether inside or outside the gallery, multimedia design is a key tool in making exhibitions accessible to broader audiences.
Design-Build Partnerships
Origin Studios has long-standing relationships with North America’s preferred exhibit fabrication firms and can work effectively on design-build projects. Design-build projects offer higher-levels of efficiency and accuracy while saving the client money. Our industrial designers have expertise with spatial design and materials and will guide fabricators through even the most complex builds. We can offer a complete turn-key experience so that your time can be better focussed on content creation and institutional priorities.
Production Management & Quality Control
Our teams are established in Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto and have been steering and guiding quality deliverables for years. It would be our pleasure to work with you to find suitable service providers and to manage the production and quality control stages of your project. We’re laser-focussed on exceeding your expectations and creating memorable experiences for your audiences.
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