Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

Pulling the IMA magazine together is probably one of the most enjoyable aspects of my job, aside from Monday Web team meetings. And with the winter (November-January) issue, we usher in a new era of the magazine. No longer called Previews, but simply known as the IMA magazine, the cover and pages present the Museum’s new graphic identity. With a new look also comes fresh content and ideas that incorporate the intersection of art, design and nature. In this issue, we went out on a limb and decided to do our first retail holiday photo shoot–presenting items for sale in the Museum’s shops–rather than rely on product photography from the design house or manufacturers.

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Einstein is often quoted as saying “Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Last month, I went to a seminar given by Edward Tufte, author of “Beautiful Evidence” and “Envisioning Information” – books that serve as inspiration for many in the field of information visualization. While Einstein advocated for simplicity in describing the universe through mathematics, Tufte argues for allowing data to speak for itself by taking what might be called a minimalist approach to designing visualizations. At the seminar, I learned that Tufte has coined the term sparkline to refer to small yet data-rich line graphs like the following, which take this concept to its limit for one-dimensional time-varying data:

I thought that these sparklines might be an interesting way to represent data on the IMA Dashboard, and so I’m experimenting by bringing this nugget of wisdom to bear on a chart that I haven’t been very pleased with. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes that’s right there are two new people working/blogging at the IMA.  Along with Kris, I am working with the IMA to continue to grow our online presence.  I am currently working on the Steve Tagger project (more info here).  So how did I get here?

Moving Time

Yes that’s right, I moved here from the center of America, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  I actually am a native Hoosier but moved further out west a few years ago.  South Dakota is an interesting place, it is very flat and has a lot of wind.  There are a lot of windmill farms popping up all over the state.  We enjoyed living in South Dakota but the opportunity at the museum was a good excuse to move back.

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From Thursday through Sunday, fantasy creatures of all sorts will be roaming through thousands of imaginations at GenCon 2009. You may have read about the upcoming convention in the news already, but let me expound upon the artistic and creative aspects of this annual game convention.

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How do you make a magazine that captures the essence of a museum and theater, two historical estates, acres of glorious gardens and grounds, and a soon-to-be art and nature park? This is the question that has been on the top of my mind lately. It’s challenging, yet fun, to envision a magazine that entices readers to toss it aside half way through and come see for themselves. A magazine that demonstrates our mission and shows donors where their money is going. A magazine that the community sees themselves in and readers oceans away find engaging through online connections.

I sat down with IMA Senior Graphic Designer Matthew Taylor last week in the Design Studio to take a hard look at our current IMA membership magazine (Previews) and talk content and design. Read the rest of this entry »