museum of a Past that wasnt?!

[cthulhu_spawn]

aaah!! i was mere moments from completing my new project, i started to bring the pieces together, and place them in the box, and  i went to close it...and "crack" the glass dome housing the focal point of the entire project cracked and fell apart. I am not best pleased.

[Mechanism Man]

Damn your rotten luck - I hope that the offending broken glass part wasn't something that had taken forever to source...  Thinking about the authenticity of the look of the proposed museum for e second, if we make it look authentic enough, the tabloid press could have sensational story material for the next 10 years! Just imagine the headlines - "Scientific Proof of Warewolf Existence!". Ahh, you can't beat a lighthearted hoax, especially when the national press believe it to be true.
Good luck finding a new glass dome - can't wait to see it. Me? I think you should do Dragons next - shame that they are traditionally so damn big...

[Alderman Simeon]

aaah!! i was mere moments from completing my new project, i started to bring the pieces together, and place them in the box, and  i went to close it...and "crack" the glass dome housing the focal point of the entire project cracked and fell apart. I am not best pleased.

Bugger! Is it beyond the help of superglue?

[akumabito]

a display of a past that never was in a museum that isn't!

There ya go, one slogan; DONE!

[Adml. Etherington]

Being a graphic designer by trade (mostly print) and needing a project to force me to learn current web standards, I think I may take a crack at designing a "professional" website styled after a real-life brick and mortar museum's site. We'll see if free time permits (several tactile projects of mine have been back-burnered recently due to lack of both funds and time to get to my father's garage and tools, but that doesn't stop me creating on my computer)

We'll see what becomes of it. I think others might have offered up sites as well, maybe we will have to end up with multiple sites (different museum fronts) pulling from the same DB of "exhibits".

[Adml. Etherington]

One added benefit of styling the site as though it were merely the web page of a real life museum, is that a small number of exhibits displayed on the website can be implied to be representative items of larger exhibits. For example, the fabulous cthulhu_spawn's vampire and werewolf cases, plus a few other "relics" could be listed together on a page announcing the opening of "A fabulous exhibit on Vampirism and Lycanthropy, on loan from the Paris Museum of Occult Paraphernalia, in our West Wing, from August 3 through November 18."

W. C. Fields wisely said: "You can't cheat an honest man; never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump."
Following this sage advice, perhaps no disclaimer is needed for the "museum".

This is an intriguing idea, let the blatantly fictional subject matter and associated institutions, etc.. (and the copyright info in 6 point text under each exhibit) be the only indicators? I like it.

[polyphemus]

a display of a past that never was in a museum that isn't!

There ya go, one slogan; DONE!

And people will still write asking for its physical address and visiting hours, depend on it.

[akumabito]

Hmm.. speaking of the address... if you want to post a fictional address on the website, one should find an area of London that would be suitable for housing a museum in the late 1800's, yet has since been altered to such an extend that the street or perhaps even the entire neighborhood no longer exists today.

I'm not really familiar with London, so I can not suggest an neighborhood or street. But I did come across this interesting website with plenty of information (including maps!) on Victorian London.

[CapnHarlock]

This is an intriguing idea, let the blatantly fictional subject matter and associated institutions, etc.. (and the copyright info in 6 point text under each exhibit) be the only indicators? I like it.

I rather like the idea of subtle hints vs. an outright disclaimer.

"Being an Exhibition of the World-Renowned Collections of Well Known Antiquarian, the Reverend Phineas T. Pennyfarthing...."  or some such. Require just a bit of knowledge of the reader's part

[Tinkergirl]

I think that we can have a disclaimer somewhere fairly unobtrusive, but as long as we're not actually trying to hoodwink money of of people, I think there's no harm in it.  For example, the Boilerplate page is one of those that consistantly has people who stumble over it thinking "What, really?"

The main problem I can think of about making it look like a real museum site, is that REAL museum sites are generally horribly dull.  (I'm sure someone will point out a wonderful one now, just to prove me wrong, but that seems to be the case).  Often white background with some horrid side frames in grey or blue, with a thoroughly ignorable area coat-of-arms or district and nowhere near enough photographs to tempt you (and frequently poorly arranged).  Examples 1, 2 and 3.  Bleh.

I'd much prefer a richer style, possibly in black with contrasting text (as in, no horrible faux pas with dark grey writing on a black background) with perhaps a theme of rich red leather tones, or something like that.  Basically, too many museums have websites that look clean, white and late 90's!

So, unless we want the site to look generally a bit poor, then we'll have to resort to making it NOT look like a real museum - but what people would want a museum site to look like.  It's all smoke and mirrors after all.

(And I would like to have the museum cafeteria menu up there on the site too.  Things like that mess with people's heads.)

[Adml. Etherington]

I like the sounds of that. I was most recently looking through art museum sites (i googled art museum) and the ones I looked at (Philadelphia, Denver, St. Louis) were somewhere between the two you are describing.  In addition to a menu (brilliant!) I would add little touches like perhaps a quote/spotlight for various employees (groundskeeper, gift shop clerk etc..) in the vein of a "meet our great people" ad campaign, all either fictional personalities or (even better) members' personas from brassgoggles boards.

[Tinkergirl]

So, the page should really reflect the exhibits we want to display.  Exactly which items do we want to display?  Is it fictional themed items only, Steampunk items only, or a mix of fictional, Steampunk, and odd-historical items?

Anyone got any suggestions?

[cthulhu_spawn]

it has to look victorian, flock wall paper, try and make it look like an exhibit, slightly eccentric, maybe quite dark, dark reds and brown and dark green. the fonts should reflect the time period, someone with a good eye for this should take the healm. i guess we should just say that all exhibits should be photographed against a black background, so that there is a uniform feel to them.

[Tinkergirl]

My gentleman friend will hopefully be writing a guide on how to take photographs of 'exhibits' with a consistant style, using the most 'basic' tools that people can be assumed to have access to.  Point and click cameras, duck tape, torches, white paper, chairs, bedsheets, etc.  Hopefully we can get a little consistancy, if only in the lighting

[CapnHarlock]

(And I would like to have the museum cafeteria menu up there on the site too.  Things like that mess with people's heads.)

Ahh.. I can see it now.... "Air Kraken Calamari with Leek Rings and Tempura Vegetables ....(In Season)" 

Hopefully we can get a little consistancy, if only in the lighting

I am unable to find the links at the moment, but the MAKE magazine blog has several articles on very-low cost photo lighting, lightboxes, etc.

[polyphemus]

Perhaps there could also be a standard exhibit card format to give consistency.

[polyphemus]

How about something like this?

[Alderman Simeon]

Hmm.. speaking of the address... if you want to post a fictional address on the website, one should find an area of London that would be suitable for housing a museum in the late 1800's, yet has since been altered to such an extend that the street or perhaps even the entire neighborhood no longer exists today.

{Vaguely on-topic rambling}
I suspect that most towns and cities in Britain have such areas. Indeed my own address is in Station Road (surely the first such in the world), but was originally Dixon Terrace, named for John Dixon, one of the pioneers of the railways. (His younger brother Jeremiah is immortalized in the Mason-Dixon line, which he surveyed.)

[Doctor When]

Playing with colours... ideas in the melting pot, etc. etc.

[Doktor A]

This is a splendid idea. I am quite excited.

I also know people who book temporary exhibits in the local Industrial Museum so I will have alittle chat with them about this.

I think a lot of the vibe will be conveyed simply by photographing the exhibits in a suitable setting. Something like this old piece of mine :

More like a Victorian museum set up by a rich collector of oddities.

I also think some real stuff should go into the mix. Real but very odd or Fortean..

[akumabito]

I like the color-scheme of this forum..
Could it be adapted for the museum?

[Tinkergirl]

Some excellent ideas:

CapnHarlock:  Sounds very tasty indeed!  Even better if some of our more culinary artistic types could actually create some of the dishes and photograph them.  (Food photography is a whole seperate skill in itself, of course.)  I used to do decorative bento boxes (japanese style lunches) so I'm used to obscenely work intensive presentation - it can be done.

polyphemus:  An excellent idea.  Could some of those with more typographical skills look in to making something like this?  If we can have a format (perhaps a font and a border for white paper) then each person can print their own.  It'd be a nice touch.
Also, your image there looks like it'd be a nice start - perhaps that image (with the text removed) ghosted in the background of the cards?

Doctor When:  Not sure - it's suitably Victorian-style garish, of course   I do very much like the red wallpaper at the top though, that with some parchment style text areas might work well, with brass highlights?

Alderman Simeon: I'm wondering if we can find a place for our location that actually physically doesn't exist any more - like the bottom of a dammed valley, the edge of a cliff that no longer exists or an island on the Thames that was removed after dredging.  Could be fun.

Doktor A:  Lovely display, Doktor A, and you've given me an idea.  If we provide printable backdrops (mostly for the smaller exhibits) then we can give a very convincing impression of place - much like those curiously dubious portrait photograhers who have rolled up 'library' backdrops for graduation photographs.  Indeed, we could even have them slightly blurred to give depth of field effects.

akumabito:  Thank you - I rather like it myself, but it's not what I think would befit a 'respectable and world class museum'

[AE]

For the images for the items : It may be worth while passing them on to one person to do 'post' work on them in Photoshop so any discrepancies can be iron out and then be placed in the agreed format.

[Doctor When]

Doctor When:  Not sure - it's suitably Victorian-style garish, of course   I do very much like the red wallpaper at the top though, that with some parchment style text areas might work well, with brass highlights?

"Victorian Garish" is exactly what I'm aiming for here! Actually, I like it enough to use it myself if you don't...

The wallpaper is a modified (for copyright) William Morris design I found.

Alderman Simeon: I'm wondering if we can find a place for our location that actually physically doesn't exist any more - like the bottom of a dammed valley, the edge of a cliff that no longer exists or an island on the Thames that was removed after dredging.  Could be fun.

Or one of those towns submerged by a reservoir...

Or pehaps one of the more obscure places mentioned in the Cthulhu mythos, or other works by Poe, Lovecraft, &c.?

There's always the other option of simply making somewhere up... Forgelock-by-the-Mere, Brasslip or Lower Cogford anyone? Perhaps located in a county that has disappeared in border revisions since the Victorian period?

[akumabito]

Hard Hat Tours!



Now there is a silly and quasi-random idea. I was browsing museum sites for ideas, and on the website of the Dutch Rijsmuseum, they offer 'hard hat tours' which visit parts of the museum that are undergoing extensive renovations and are normally closed for the public. (more information here unfortunately only in Dutch.)

Perhaps the idea could be 'borrowed' for our museum site? Just put it down on the list of 'things you wouldn't expect of a fictional museum'..

I'll translate some of the information of the website:

Guided tours through the main buildings of the Rijksmuseum

The main building of the Rijksmuseum has been closed for the public since December 2003, as parts of the interior are currently being dismantled. Much of what has been built in the past 50 years is now being removed to restore the original open plan of architect Cuypers. Light and air return after removing entire halls, walls, floors, airconditioning installations, built-in showcases, closed arches, and a lot of low ceilings.  Spectacular is the return of the inner plaza's* that were closed up in the 1960's. 

Would you like to take a look in the main building? It's possible with the so-called Hard Hat Tour! Under guidance, with special shoes, vest and hard hat, you'll be guided through the dismantled spaces and you will get a preview of the 'newly created' 19th century hallways. There, on arches and windows, you can still see parts of Cuypers' original decorations.

How can you buy a ticket?
* Through our online reservation system.
* Tickets are also available through the Infocenter of Het Nieuwe Rijksmuseum, Jan Luijkenstraat 1 (Open Tuesday ~ Sunday, 11:00 ~ 16:00hr). Tickets can only be purchased in cash. The use of credit or debit cards is not possible in the Infocenter.
* This tour costs €15,-; maximum of 10 tickets per reservation.

N.B. Exchanging or canceling your Hard Hat Tour reservation is not possible!

When do the Hard Hat Tours take place?

* In September 2007, the tours take place every Friday on the following times; 11:00 ~ 12:30; 13:00 ~ 14:30 and 15:00 ~ 16:30 hrs. In the online reservation system you will find the exact dates and timetables.

General information:

* The tour lasts approximately 90 minutes.
* There is a maximum of 25 participants per tour.

Conditions:

* Minimum age for participation is 18 years.
* This tour is not suitable for people with a physical disability, or for people who suffer from asthma.
* Photography is not permitted during the tour.
* Large bags and other cumbersome items are not permitted.
* Participants need to stay together and follow instructions given by the guide.
* Exchanging or canceling your Hard Hat Tour reservation is not possible.
 

On this page the museum also offers a number of videos about the renovations.











*Sorry, I couldn't find the proper word. Does anyone else speak Dutch? What's the correct translation for 'binnenhof'?