Interpretation By Design

Shea and I are not exactly cutting edge when it comes to, well, anything, really. For instance, I still own a VCR, Zip disks, and tapered jeans. Shea still has that haircut.

Bearing that in mind, this post is about technology that is not widely used just yet, but it’s coming. It’s completely free, extremely useful, easy to use, and—get ready for a cutting-edge technical term—kinda neat.

You may have noticed that QR Codes, the bar code-looking squares like the one here, are popping up in print and online more and more. QR (“Quick Response”) Codes direct people with smart phones to whatever kind of information you choose to provide—contact information, narrative text, or a URL, to name a few examples. The code here directs you to the Interpretation By Design website that you are currently reading. It’s not the most creative thing I could have posted here, but I figured some of you would want to use this image as your Facebook profile picture.

Like tapered jeans, QR codes have been around for a long time—in this case since 1994—but with the increasing popularity of smart phones, they are just now poised to really take off. QR Codes were developed in Japan by the company Denso-Wave primarily for industrial use. But pop culture has gotten hold of them, and now you can see them in Pet Shop Boys videos or even create your own QR Code T-shirts on sites like zazzle.com. The codes are starting to pop up more in the visual environment at varying scales, as with this photo by Nicolas Raoul taken in Japan in 2009:

From this we can learn two important things: 1. Technology can be used in fun and creative ways, and 2. The Pet Shop Boys are still making videos.

It’s easy to create a QR Code. Just visit one of the many website that generate the codes, such as zxing.appspot.com/generator or qrcode.kaywa.com (just to name two of the many that come up when you search “QR Code Generator” on the internet), plug in your information, and tell the site to generate the code. What you get is an image file that can be downloaded for use in print or online.

To read a QR Code, all you need is a smart phone and an app called a QR Code Reader. I have an iPhone and use a free app called QR Reader. There are plenty of similar apps for other smart phones. When you open the app, it will activate your phone’s camera. Just point the camera at the code and your phone will do the rest.

Beginning with the November/December issue, Legacy magazine will include a QR Code directing readers to the National Association for Interpretation’s website, www.interpnet.com. You could use a QR code on an trailside panel to provide visitors more information on a topic. You could place one on your business card or nametag at a conference to easily share contact information, in a newsletter to direct potential donors to a website, or in a blog to direct readers to a photo of an adorable puppy, which I have done here.

When you use QR Codes, not everyone will know what they are, but for the ever-increasing number of people who do know what they’re looking at, you’ll have created the opportunity to engage with your media at a deeper level.

Editors Note: This post is the third post in a three-part series that revolves around three distinct interpretive experiences that my family and I had on a recent trip to Missouri.

I have a history of losing my children (Gracie, Disney World, Orlando, FL 9.11.2008; William, Field Museum Chicago, IL 8.10.2009, Anna, TBD). It is amazing how quickly it can happen. One minute, I’m watching the entire Star Wars series back to back to back to back to back to back and the next thing I know my children are nowhere to be found.

Citygarden St. Louis is the perfect place to lose your children. One minute I’m taking pictures of pink signs and the next thing I know my children are in a fountain swimming. At this park it is okay to swim in the fountains (well this one was closed, but they are open at various times to children for splashing, playing, and swimming). In fact it is encouraged. The only problem I have with this feature is that from now on it will be my job to convince my children that it is not okay to swim in water fountains.

Sometimes it is good to get lost yourself, especially in the middle of a large city like St. Louis. Green space is a premium in urban areas and Citygarden has a prime location in the Gateway Arch Mall. The garden is beautiful (with a collection of native plants representing natural regions of Missouri), has unique features (representing geographic regions of Missouri), has multiple purposes, attracts a diverse audience, and uses interpretation to help visitors find meaning in its purpose. What more can you ask for in an interpretive site? Okay, maybe a hot wings stand.

I love public pieces of art, especially when it is okay for you to interact with them. I really appreciate the background information and interpretation provided in the visitors’ guide to the garden. When I opened the map box, I expected it to be empty since so many publication boxes that I encounter are found that way. This one wasn’t, and even better the quality design of the brochure and map added interest in finding and understanding all of the park’s sculptures. Knowing the thoughts of the artist when creating the pieces really helps you appreciate the artwork.

It is the little things that matter, especially with only three acres making up Citygarden. Even the backs of the signs and exhibits are thematic and carry the design elements. Much like a well-quaffed mullet, the front is all business (as much business as you can get in pink and blue) and says “No Parking!” and the back is all party and says “Yay, aren’t you happy you are at Citygarden and not at work?” The interpretive designers that created these signs have just hired someone to whack me because of that analogy. Well if they think that one is bad wait until they hear the next one in the follwing paragraph.

The attention to detail to the back of the signs reminds me of Deputy Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith Show polishing the backs of his shoes because that’s the last thing people will see and remember about you. That may be the worst analogy in IBD history and the last thing you read and remember about me.

I would interpret what I learned about this piece of art but to keep from sounding like an idiot will refrain. The artwork in the garden is awesome.

I have never seen a better use of a jumbotron in my life. This one is used for showing videos, documentaries, special features, art films, commercial films, and Cardinals’ games. When one of these is not showing a real-time digital camera allows children (and adults with children who always wanted to be featured on the jumbotron at major League Baseball game, preferably in an American League stadium found in New York) create their own performance art. The current films don’t go un-interpreted either. The box on the far right of the picture has a flat with information about what you are watching.

The most popular part of the garden is the spray plaza that has 102 jets shooting water as high as ten feet in the air, changing colors, and patterns while children and adults alike splash around in them.

Citygarden is a great mixture of art, design, water, and interpretation with a healthy dose of whimsy. Don’t forget to polish the backs of your shoes.

Last week, Shea and I conducted a two-day workshop for employees of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) in Los Angeles. Before I go on, I have to thank Amy Lethbridge, MRCA’s deputy executive officer, whose idea it was for us to present the session, and Jamie Cabral, MRCA’s chief of interpretation, who went to great lengths to plan and implement a full and truly entertaining itinerary for those hours outside the session.

Amy and Jamie were extremely generous with their time and energy, so the next time you’re in Los Angeles, find them and give them a big hug. Amy even gave me a Dodgers hat to take home to my six-year-old son, and while I had to burn the hat because it says Dodgers on it, it was still a very nice gesture.

Jamie spent the better part of Wednesday showing us all the LA sites only tourists visit.

Neither Shea nor I had ever been to LA, so when Jamie picked us up at the airport the day before the session, our heads were filled with preconceptions but very little actual knowledge of the city. When Jamie asked us what we wanted to see, we said, “The stupidest, most brainless tourist stuff you can think of.” This is how we ended up eating at Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘n’ Waffles in Hollywood at 10:00 that night.

Our time in Los Angeles (seen here from Vista Hermosa Natural Park, an MRCA site) was an interesting lesson in how our expectations of a place affect our experiences at that place. This is why it is important that brochures, websites, and other media portray an accurate sense of place and convey interpretive themes to visitors who have not yet arrived at a site. Nonpersonal interpretive media are often the first contact visitors have with a site, so they create expectations that will affect visitors’ experiences.

My image of Los Angeles was based almost exclusively on what I have seen in movies, so I knew that certain preconceptions wouldn’t hold up. We arrived to find that the city had not been destroyed by a volcano, climate-change-induced tornadoes, or alien overlords, so that was a good start to the day. And we found that places like Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier are indeed populated, at least in part, by attractive people on roller blades, so our good luck continued.

Seeing the famous Hollywood sign from the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard itself was a thrill simply because it is famous. However, the sensation was the exact opposite of what I have experienced at sites like the Grand Canyon or Yosemite. I’ll never forget looking over the south rim of the Grand Canyon for the first time, in part because no photograph or preconception can ever prepare you for what you see in person. The Hollywood sign and Hollywood Boulevard, on the other hand, look precisely like what you think they’re going to look like, which is why the only people standing there taking pictures of it are tourists like Shea and me.

One of the highlights of the trip was being in the studio audience for a taping of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! TV show, which Jamie set up for us because, I reiterate, she is so cool. I had prepared myself for the fact that the studio would be smaller than it appears on TV. I had not prepared myself for the fact that it would be way, way smaller than it appears on TV. Because I had envisioned an experience much glitzier in a slightly bigger space, I left feeling a little underwhelmed about the whole notion of late-night TV.

Before the show, the audience was instructed on how and when to laugh and applaud during the show—something I knew would happen. Afterwards, I found myself wondering why people like me would go along with these instructions, only to be essentially treated as a prop by the one person they were there to see, in this case Jimmy Kimmel. For some reason, audience members do comply without hesitation, which is why I found myself cheering wildly for a musical guest named Chantelle, whom I had previously never heard of. I’m still not sure I’m spelling her name correctly.

I also wondered afterwards why I enjoyed it so much, which I absolutely did. Is it the proximity to fame, glitz, and glamor? Maybe it was because one of the best jokes of the night related to graphic design. Kimmel, channeling my professors from graduate school, critiqued the cover of the new book Kardashian Konfidential like this: “I imagine this is what it would look like if a unicorn got drunk on cosmos and vomited on a book. It’s easy on the eyes.”

Every preconception I had about seeing a Dodgers game in person was accurate. The stadium is beautiful—a monument to the game. The weather was perfect, and the palm trees scattered around the stadium (though not on the actual field—that may have spiced things up a bit) reinforced the fact that we were in one of the nicest places there is to watch a game. Again, it was a thrill to actually be in a place I had previously only seen and heard about through various media.

And the fans, per their reputation, arrived late in the game and left early. During the game, they amused themselves by doing the wave and bopping beach balls around the stands, even during tense, important moments. All of this was in complete keeping with my expectations.

Finally, the workshop was conducted at King Gillette Ranch in Calabasas, an MRCA site. I had an idea of what the setting would look like because I knew that the site is nestled among the same mountains where the TV show MASH was filmed. Fans of the show The Biggest Loser would perhaps recognize the setting, too, because it is filmed at the ranch.

As with any great experience, though, it was not the setting but the people who made the difference. The MRCA staff who participated in the workshop were a particularly engaging group, and they tolerated two days of our nonsense, which our wives will tell you is an impressive feat. Some workshop participants even took Shea birding over lunch.

Here we are at the King Gillette Ranch with Amy, who loves LA.

My experience in LA was indeed affected by my expectations. I was a bit let down by the glitz and glamor of Hollywood because, let’s face it, nothing can quite measure up to what is portrayed to the public. Other experiences exceeded my expectations—in part because my expectations were colored by friends telling me things like “It’s a big scary place” and “SO LONG, SUCKER!” The Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall (pictured here) and MRCA’s Vista Hermosa Natural Park in downtown Los Angeles were beautiful surprises, and seeing a game in Dodger Stadium was every bit the baseball experience I expected.

Ultimately, I left Los Angeles with highly positive associations, not because of Venice Beach or Jimmy Kimmel or even Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘n’ Waffles, but because the time I spent there was with people like Amy, Jamie, and the MRCA staff, who see its beauty and are enthusiastic about sharing it with others.

Editors Note: This post is the second post in a three-part series that revolve around three distinct interpretive experiences that my family and I had on a recent trip to Missouri. If you read last week’s post and came back for more, you are a glutton for punishment—and if you are looking forward to next week’s post on City Garden your name is Jeff Miller.

I used to consider myself laid back and easy going. The older I get the more I realize how crotchety I am becoming. I have grown seriously dependent on air conditioning, Brooks Brother’s bow ties, Pilot G2 pens with the .07 point tip, internet access wherever I go, Lipitor, iPod touch loaded with the previous night’s Phish concert, argyle patterned items, and a full understanding of what it is that I’m about to get into (preferably in writing, in digital format, set in Helvetica) when visiting a museum. The City Museum in St. Louis, MO is practically like kryptonite to me.

Forty-nine percent of my being wants me to rip the City Museum to shreds for their lack of interpretation, 49 percent of me can’t wait until the next time I take my family there, and two percent of me wants to go shopping for argyle socks. Since I’m obviously divided I will provide you with an objective review of our experience, which happened to be unbelievable.

I had heard about the City Museum from several different friends and knew it was some place to check out when we were planning our trip to St. Louis. The funny thing about the museum is that those I had spoken to couldn’t really describe what it is, or what you do there, but said we would love it. They were exactly right. It is a difficult place to wrap your mind around. Their website says the museum is “is an eclectic mixture of children’s playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects.” Which is a 100 percent accurate description but doesn’t really tell you what you will be doing there, what to be prepared for, or what you will experience.

What you will experience is play, exploration, mystery, the unknown, and interaction. The concept was developed by “Bob Cassilly, a classically trained sculptor and serial entrepreneur” not to be an academic facility. The museum carries the underlying theme that that anything can be re-used for something fun and beautiful if you put your mind, heart, and soul into it, though no theme or mission is evident. This museum’s collection is anything and everything you can and can’t think of that has been transformed into slides, tunnels, places for play, exploration, creativity, and dare I say self-actualization.

Reclaimed items such as bridge parts, air planes, construction equipment, boats, rebar, concrete, tile, and bread pans. These items have been refashioned into works of art in a space that allows visitors the chance to do whatever they want with them in that space, and be totally accepted. The only thing that might not have been accepted would be me taking out my laptop just to check and see if they had wifi available.  The only rules I found (and the closest thing to a mission/purpose statement I have found) were printed on this small sign upon entry into the multi-level, 600,000-square-foot facility (which happens to be a repurposed shoe factory).

Cassily is quoted saying “The City Museum makes you want to know,” and “The point is not to learn every fact, but to say, ‘Wow, that’s wonderful.’ And if it’s wonderful, it’s worth preserving.” This sounds a lot like a quote “Through education comes understanding, through understanding comes appreciation” from the interpretive profession.

The City Museum is strangely devoid of interpretation as we know it. It is also void of many other basic visitor communication techniques that I have grown to expect such as directional signs, maps, way finding, and detailed descriptions or explanations of exhibits. Now that I understand what the museum is, I’m not so sure it belongs. In much the same way a wayside exhibit carefully written, planned, designed and installed on the edge of the Grand Canyon can’t really expect to add something that the landscape doesn’t already create for the visitor. The signs they do have fit right in with the feel of the museum. They obviously have someone talented on staff with chalk.

I do think the majority of visitors will leave there saying they had a great experience but not fully understanding why the museum is there or grasping why the place is unique. I also think that applying a few interpretive techniques, principles, or even personal approaches to some of the displays, experiences, and exhibits could only add to visitor experience, wonderful thoughts, and preservation. Providing something as simple as a map could help you plan your visit and manage your time. This coming from a guy who likes things placed in a grid.

You can find interpretive panels in one exhibit in one area displaying a collection of reclaimed architecture. I found comfort and reassurance in the dim lights, calming sans serifs typefaces, and sound design principles displayed in this area. In a museum with 600,000 square feet and thousands of people there at the same time as our visit, we were the only ones in this area.  My children about died while in this exhibit but they learned the valuable lesson of living with an uptight dad. After a few moments I was back following my children, squeezing though holes, crawling through tunnels, and contorting my body in ways that I have not experienced since 1989. I made it though by closing my eyes and finding my happy place where all text is rag right and everyone wears seersucker.

Not all palaces need interpretation in the strictest sense to provide an interpretive experience. If you are in St. Louis, the City Museum is a must see or do. Oh yeah, and on my way out I noticed that even their entrance sign was a repurposed sign. If you look closely the back of the sign reads Capitol Visitor Center…you gotta love the City Musuem.

I love license plates. I love that bureaucrats have to get together and decide on a simple look and a few words to sum up an entire state. Imagine if you were designing a museum exhibit or trailside panel and had the same constraints—three or four words and a simple image—that are imposed on license plate designers.

Some states’ plates, like Colorado’s iconic mountains or Hawaii’s rainbow with the legend “Aloha State,” are simple and successful in my opinion.

In some states, it seems like they couldn’t make a decision and went with two messages. I imagine the argument in Idaho between the “Famous Potatoes” and the “Scenic Idaho” factions must have sounded like a “Tastes great!” vs. “Less filling!” debate. I also think that the “Famous Potatoes” people won the argument and some rogue “Scenic Idaho” proponent snuck the word “Scenic” in at the last second after all of the “Famous Potatoes” people had gone home for the night.

And in my native state of Pennsylvania, the “We give up!” state, we went with no message or image at all, just the name of our state and the state website. (We could have least gone with the state highway commission’s official motto: “Construction Ahead: Expect Delays.”)

The reason I bring this up is that Maryland just released a new standard-issue license plate, and it has not been well received. And when I say it has not been well received, what I mean is that it looks like the Maryland governor gave his six-year-old kid a lesson in Microsoft Publisher and how to access clip-art from the CD that came with the printer he bought in 1993 and set him to work.

I understand that graphic designers who change something that people have grown accustomed to often meet with resistance, so I was skeptical when I heard the negative reviews—until I saw the plates.

The new plates, created by the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission, commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812 with a depiction of Fort McHenry and the “bombs bursting in air” referenced in Francis Scott Key’s 1814 Star-Spangled Banner poem. The problem is that without the legend “War of 1812″ included in the design, you’d think that the plates commemorate a Fourth of July celebration at the IKEA just off I-95. Eighty-six percent of the people who responded to an informal survey in The Washington Post prefer the old plates. (The article says, “Eight percent thought the new plate was beautiful.”) Letters to the editor in The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post ripped the plates.

Bill Pencek, director of the Maryland War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission, responded to the criticism by saying:

We looked at the poll. It’s a great country. Everybody is entitled to their opinion.

So, at first, this seems cut and dry. A bunch of bureaucrats tried to cram too much content at too detailed a level into a medium that would not support it and the project failed. But there’s more! I am proud to present the first-ever IBD License Plate Conspiracy Theory. It seems that the commission knew the design was bad and that they did it on purpose.

Since the plates are standard issue, there is no extra fee for them. However, Maryland offers two other license plates: one with an image of a heron and one with a farm. The extra fees for these plates support the Chesapeake Bay Trust and the Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, respectively. Bill Pencek, quoted in The Washington Post, says:

We didn’t want to compete with the other background plates. There was an intention to be beautiful, but not more beautiful than the bay plate or the farm plate.

This means that some designer was handed a project and told, “Do something not as good as these two other things.” Hence the warehouse and the starbursts.

Finally, my favorite license plate-related anecdote involves New Hampshire’s famous “Live Free or Die” motto. In 1977, a motorist named George Maynard covered the words “or Die” because they conflicted with his religious beliefs. The state of New Hampshire, ironically forgetting the sense of their state motto, prosecuted Maynard for violating a state law that prohibits altering license plates. Maynard was convicted, but the case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, where the ruling was overturned.

I would love to see what interpreters came up with if they were charged with the task of developing license plates for their sites. And since Shea and I will be conducting a couple training sessions in the next few weeks and we are always looking for ways to keep the class busy while we get coffee and talk about baseball, I may have just had an idea.