Week 2

My brief:

To support London’s sustainable city pledge, the Design Museum is seeking to encourage environmentally friendly behaviours through material design. The aim of the exhibition is to educate visitors on the importance of sustainable materials, and provide insight in to a future without pollution. 

Targeted at all ages, the exhibit will combine scientific design with interactive elements. The exhibit will explore using biodegradable materials from various natural sources, alongside using sustainable materials in the exhibit itself.

The client has provided all of the content for the exhibit. Outline the time and costs required to deliver initial stage one body of work, across 3 examples of budget increments. Provide an indication of production costs based on the strategy.

Deliverables

Signage
To educate and guide visitors around the exhibit. This includes information panels about products in the exhibit.

Merchandise
Souvenirs for all ages. Hand dyed clothing and stationery.

Posters
To hang outside the museum, to showcase in bus-stop billboards and around the museum itself.

Leaflet
A guide around the exhibit, or to attract people to the exhibit whilst at the Design Museum.

Website
An article to advertise the exhibition on the Design Museum’s website, and a banner advert to host on the homepage or ‘what’s on’ page.

How much do museums charge for exhibitions?

From my research, there are various factors that influence the total cost of the exhibit:
• Size of the exhibit
• Exposure, how many visitors
• Topic of exhibit
• How long the exhibit runs
• Is it a one-off or is it repeated in future?
• Location
• How much funding the museum receives

I have found information that shows since the design museum opened in 2016 and during the financial year of 2018/19 there have had over 518,000 visitors. This ‘annual report year ended 31 March 2019’ is a useful insight to how much money the Design Museum is responsible for, including overheads, profit, charities, staff etc.

The annual report also goes on to mention:

‘The Design museum usually stages around six temporary exhibitions a year for which it levies admission charges, covering a range of areas from architecture and graphic design to fashion and product design. The main exhibitions during the 2018/2019 financial year were:

Ferrari: Under the Skin
Hope to Note: Graphics and Politics 2008-18
Azzedine Alaia: The Couturier
Beazley Designs of the Year
Home Futures
David Adjaye: Making Memory

Being that the museum is in central London, with great exposure and location, and backed handsomely by charities/trustees, I believe they would be willing to pay well for an exhibition (the source above shows the C. Especially for an exhibition promoting sustainability, as it makes them look good and enhances their image.

Concept 1

£50,000 client budget

• Small exhibit, and temporary
• Free entry for visitors
• 2 months running time
• One off exhibit, designers keep materials
• London Design museum, one of the smaller exhibit rooms

Concept 2

£75,000 client budget

• Medium scale exhibit, a temporary exhibit
• £13 a head adult entry fee
• 6 months running time
• Repeated exhibit, annually. Materials licensed by designers
• London Design museum, a medium sized room

Concept 3

£100,000 client budget

• Large scale exhibit, the main exhibition for Design museum
• £20 a head adult entry fee
• 6 months running time
• One off exhibit, museum keep materials used under licence
• London Design museum, largest room available

So how would I tackle each brief? I must have a process that the studio can follow when approaching a new brief… Regardless of client budget. The client just pays for more time and therefore, design of higher value.