Here is the final blog from placement student Holly, reflecting on how she developed her display.
During the final weeks of my placement, I began to consider how I might use the material from the Metaphor collection to create an interesting and engaging display that would not only serve as a visual representation of my work during my placement but also inform students about the Archive’s Metaphor collection.
At first, I considered focusing the display on one job, namely the British Museum First Emperor exhibition job, however I found that idea to be limiting. Ultimately, I decided to choose specific items from various different jobs that had previously stood out to me, each representing a different stage of the design process (figure 1).
After choosing the items I wished to display and establishing a theme to connect them, I began planning how I would display both the items and their associated labels using photographs, editing and arranging them in photoshop (figure 2).
After I was confident that I knew what I wanted to accomplish with the design of my display, I began to prepare everything I would need. I used both the items themselves, as well as information from the Metaphor website to inform the content of the labels. Given the delicate nature of the Hampton court silhouette cutout, which was being used to represent the prototype or modelling stage of design, the best plan seemed to be to recreate the object, leading me to use black card and a scalpel to do so. Newspaper cuttings and professional photographs for the British Museum First Emperor exhibition were digitised to create the ‘Media and Reception’ label, representing the final stage of a design project. Additionally, a poster was designed to provide information about Metaphor as a whole, as well as draw attention to the display. Finally, the labels were printed, stands and rests were assigned, and everything was placed into the case (figure 3).
Thank you Holly, for creating a lovely display, and all the rest of your work over the placement – we really appreciate it!
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