Making the Museum is a newsletter and podcast on exhibition planning for museum leaders, exhibition teams and visitor experience professionals.

MtM is a project of C&G Partners | Design for Culture


Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Why Visitors Visit

We’re all involved in exhibitions all the time. But sometimes we’re so focused, we don’t always think about why all our visitors really visit. Imagine how better informed our work would be — if we did. Let’s dig into it. For Part 1, let’s get all the reasons out there:

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Same / Not Same

Visiting an exhibition is like visiting a city. Both need a mix of two things: Matching systems - elements that are always the same. And unique one-offs - elements that are never the same. Street signs, stoplights and bus stops need to match. And if they don’t …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

We’re Poor?

There is a song we sometimes sing in our exhibition and experience projects: We’re poor. Our budgets don’t have the money those “other” industries have. We’re the ones who have to do a lot with a little. But is it true? …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Phil & Monique: Iron Triangle

Sitting at a corner table are MONIQUE, exhibition developer wise beyond her years, and PHIL, anxious independent museum consultant. PHIL: This coffee is terrible. No wonder it was so cheap and fast. MONIQUE: Iron Triangle, baby. [Sips matcha] …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Esprit de Corps

In a classic MtM podcast on “How to Build a Museum,” architect David Greenbaum called out “esprit de corps” as a must-have for every museum project team. It is the unity, loyalty, and camaraderie among team members. …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Respite Spaces

Concerts have silences between songs. Book chapters have blank spaces at the end. In this email, there is an empty line after each idea. Respites don’t just appear because one bit is over. It’s deliberate. They establish rhythm and refocus us. …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Mats, Matts, and Mattes

The most basic form of exhibition planning and design is probably the simple act of framing something. And if you are framing something under glass, you will likely use a mat. Or matt. Or matte. Or mat board. Or matte board. Or mount (in the UK). …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Smiling Curves

Exhibition and experience projects usually follow what economists call a “smiling curve” of effort. That’s a curve shaped like a smile — basically a wide “u”. It maps effort over time: it starts high, smooths out, then gets high again at the end. …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Chain Link Clichés

Visitors don’t expect to find raw, unfinished building materials like chain link fencing, raw plywood, or unpainted concrete blocks in an exhibition. So when we use them raw to construct exhibitions, they can create memorable emotional impact. …

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Technology Jonathan Alger Technology Jonathan Alger

Sneaky Attract Mode

Ideally, the most important takeaway of any interactive should get communicated even if visitors haven’t interacted yet. Yes, that sounded crazy. But stay with me. Question: What is the one thing every interactive exhibition element must do? …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

To Tell a Story With Things?

Here’s a question I like to ask occasionally, to see if this definition changes over time. Do all exhibitions “tell a story with things”? The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) thinks so. But what do you think? …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

S.L.A.T.C.H.?

The five L.A.T.C.H. methods are Location, Alphabetical, Time, Categorical, and Hierarchical. Occasionally, I’m asked to admit that some approach is not already covered. The most common proposed addition is “storyline”. So … S.L.A.T.C.H.? …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

(Museum Exhibition Visitor) Experience Design

“Experience design“ might be the most influential idea in our field at the moment — yet it also might be the most misunderstood. Some think “experience design” is merely a rebranding of our existing practice. But that’s not true. …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Everyone’s Saying Experience Design

Today, let me tell you a story. 1983: Service Design. Let’s start here for now. G. Lynn Shostack, a bank marketing executive, coins the term “service design,” spawning a new field. Like product design, but for services. Smart, right? …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

What Is Experience Design: Readers' Replies

Welcome to “What Is Experience Design” Week, Episode 1. This week, we’ll look into this question over three episodes. We’ll find that the answer is … complicated. First, here’s what you said about it …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Awareness Artists

Awareness art (aka protest art) is art that exists primarily to draw attention to an issue. I’m a bit obsessed with it. Why? Many — no, all — exhibition projects have some form of awareness-building as the main point. So maybe we’re all awareness artists. …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Your Thoughts Needed: What Is Experience Design?

When new subscribers join this list, I ask a single question in the email that confirms them: What is the one thing you most want to read about? And the answer that I get, more than any other, is “experience design.” So let’s get into it. But first …

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Jonathan Alger Jonathan Alger

Repetition is Good. Repetition is Good.

Keepers of important collections and facts want to show as many as possible to the public whenever they get the chance. Which means never repeating. But we could repeat a word, an idea, or a digital image as often as we like. So why would we? …

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