Venom

Exhibit

Project Overview

One of nature’s most powerful tools, venom has the power to paralyze—and the potential to heal. This exhibit reveals how often-feared yet biologically important animals like spiders, scorpions, jellyfish, and snakes sting, suck, bite, and stun while using venom to capture prey and provide deadly defense against predators. Additionally, this exhibit showcases how scientists are studying venom to harness compounds that could hold the key to curing human diseases.

My Contributions

Working alongside exhibit designers, developers, animators, and scientists, I produced various illustrative graphics for both print and animation, presenting our viewers with unique looks into some of the more unusual venomous animals known. In addition to some of the larger exhibit visual graphics, I redesigned our Digital ID system, delivering information without any physical touching of the screens, while also providing instances of interactivity for those who are curious to learn even more.

Encounter a potent array of over a dozen venomous species in the this all-new exhibit. Venom focuses the providing an eye opening experience of what venom is, how animals use it, and how scientists are beginning to harness it. Animals, Specimens, animation, and other interactive experiences immerse and inform visitors of the unique and often misunderstood qualities of venom. My role in this exhibit included developing the illustration style for various graphics and animations, as well as updating our Digital ID system, which will expand to the rest of the Academy's exhibits. Working alongside scientists, animators and other designers, I was able to create scientifically accurately depictions of more than a dozen different animal species.

Venom Exhibit

Illustration / Interactive / Animation

Mar 2019 — Aug 2020

Experience the Cobra's Defense exhibit interactive structure

This interactive depicts an animation showcasing how a Cobra defends itself against it's predators. Peek your head into the cobras mouth, and experience a surprise during the cobras striking sequence. This element of the exhibit required coordination between designers, animators, scientists, audio/visual mechanics, and exhibit preparators.

CASE STUDY

Digital Screen Animal IDs

UI / UX / Interactive Flow

An early iteration of the system allows for many new capabilities, including a map, photo gallery, video component, and even extra room for additional species information. The barrier to this as a solution ultimately became the lack of available content, which signaled a need to reign in our options.

Digital ID screens with interactive areas and text blocks

Once the amount, and types, of content were established, various screen were configured and word counts were established in order to create a content management system that would allow content managers to easily update screens at ease.

In addition to developing a system by which content could be changed, the CMS also allowed for control over the color of various elements in order to better reflect the exhibit. These colors systems could be saved and easily applied to multiple screens as groups, allowing entire changes to go into affect for all exhibit IDs with a single button click.

Ultimately the system allows for the most crucial information on a species/specimen to be displayed alongside a visual. Future iterations (in-progress) will allow for a grid like system of animal selection in addition to the slideshow format seen here.

With the new exhibit came an opportunity to update our Digital ID system. Beginning with this exhibit, and ultimately extending to the rest of the museum, I developed a workflow and interface that would allow for flexibility of content, while also allowing each ID to be individualized to match the exhibit overall and the specific animal (or animals) being shown.

The entryways of this exhibit are intended to entice and draw guests into the exhibit. For Venom, we were able to achieve two unique entryway structures that are quick to draw the eye, while also fitting with the theme of the exhibit. Working with designers, animators, and audio/visual technicians, these entryways highlight the best of a collaborative working environment.

CASE STUDY

Venom Animated Entryways

Illustration / Animation

Early iterations of the entryway explore various geometry and animal combination concepts. From the initial explorations, we understood the importance of having the entryway be both something that draws guests to the exhibit, but doesn't overshadow the exhibit itself. A subtle wow factor was key.

In addition to the unique geometry and illustrations of the exhibit and entryway, another important aspect of drawing quests attention was movement. A dimensional structure with printed elements was set as the canvas for a projected animation. Combining both print and projected animation onto the exhibit entryways involved a lot of trial and error, coordination, and planning in order to achieve an ultimately seamless attraction.

In the end, the entryways became a highlight of the exhibit, with it's subtle movements to what would otherwise appear to be printed illustrations. The final results continue to wow guests.