Science Museum Visual Audit

I came to the Science Museum by bus. The first visual sign I saw of the institution was this banner (above)next to the main entrance. It promotes a temporary exhibition about Cosmonauts.

In my opinion, the typeface of the museum is very adequate. It has a 'sci-fi' look. The font was created specifically for the museum by the brand consultants Johnson Banks in 2010.

  

Right at the entrance - as is the case in most museums nowadays - there is the museum shop. It is HUGE (probably bigger than some of the display rooms). Its humoristic 'the science of shopping' wall writing (above) is a good sales strategy; it puts the superficial and trivial act of shopping at the same level of extraordinary and significant scientific discoveries. Therefore, people don't feel too bad in spending money on futile items... --> Confirms the power of writing and font.

I like how the museum people gave a thought about the lighting in the shop. The neon lights have a quite futuristic and non-traditional quality (they look like Star Wars lightsabers).

Before making our way inside the exhibitions, we were given a map of the building. The design of the map is quite simple, with a few images of some of the major human inventions (the telephone, the wheel and the lightbulb).The choice of colour is harmonious, with contrasting blues and yellows.

The inside of the map has been designed so that each floor has its own colour, which I thought was clever as it offers a quicker and more effective way of finding what you want to see. The floor numbers also borrowed the johnson typeface.

As we make our way up to the first exhibition, we pass some posters on the stairs. This poster in particular was very catchy, with its vivid yellow (and picture of a burger mmmh I was hungry at the time). The layout of the poster is airy, with a simple combination of the colours red and yellow. The information conveyed is clear. The burger image is shaped like a circle, a well-known design strategy which causes our eyes to go constantly round the image, with no vanishing point.

On the second floor, we were going to see Alec Soth's photography exhibition 'Gathered Leaves'. Next to the show doors there was a cafe, and each of its small square tables had a triangular leaflet of the exhibition on it. It seems to me that the museum puts a lot of effort into advertising its temporary exhibitions inside its walls, rather than outside...

The entrance to Alec Soth's photography exhibition. I thought the old man in the poster was the photographer himself. It is not very clear until you come across that image in the last room of the exhibition and realise it is just some random guy dancing.
(Also, the guy on left of my picture really looks like the guy in the poster??!!!).

Apart from that, I really enjoyed Soth's photographs. Inside display cases in the centre of the rooms, there were some manuscripts and lovers letters. Those were a joy to read. I especially liked the one above which ended with an interesting 'Take Care and Drop Dead'.

This photo was my favorite because I am obsessed with surreal stuff and optical illusions. Thumbs up Alec!

Finally, I had to include this photograph. It is just so unexpected. Your eyes first see the face of the person and you think it is a woman because of the long hair. But then you start looking down at the rest of the picture, and you suddenly catch sight of her hairy bulky arms. Still a her?