MARKHAM, ON—Reich + Petch was recently tasked with designing the first exhibit and related graphic design elements in the newly completed Collections building at the Markham Museum.

The exhibit Favourite Things was the first exhibition in the new building's 3,000 sq. ft. gallery, opening Sept. 24 and scheduled to continue for six months. "In an effort to celebrate the history of the town and the extensive collection held by the museum, the exhibit highlights objects from the museum collection special to community leaders and guests," explained Edmund Li, director of graphic design at Reich + Petch.

The agency "planned how the story would be told spatially" by specifying exhibit furniture including plinths and display cases, he noted. Reich + Petch also designed the graphics for wall panels, freestanding pylons, banners and labels, he added.



There were design challenges, noted Li – "When we began to design the exhibition, there was no script, no list of objects and we did not have a fabricator on board due to a complex municipal tendering process," he explained. "We had very little time to design. The only thing that was certain was the name of the exhibit."

To get around these obstacles, he noted, "Instead of focusing on the unknown, our solution was to separate our design timeline with the ongoing battle of object selection and script writing by requesting a short list of objects from the collection which the curatorial staff found interesting ... and creating a typographic pattern [seen on the panels] with the available list."

The words also adorned the walls

There are illustrations of various objects placed within the weave of words as well, which were taken from an image source book, noted Li. "The period illustrations amazingly match some of the objects from the list," he added.

The fonts on the banners and related materials include The Serif, Mrs Eaves and Whitney.