Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Walker Art Center welcomes art-loving bloggers
These days, it seems that every museum website you visit has new bells and whistles. And why not? Museums aren’t just repositories for art that was created once and never will change again; they’re living sites for important exchanges among artists, and between artists and their audience. So their websites should be vital, engaging, instructive and involving. The website of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is a really good example, inviting the visitor to get involved right from the initial homepage images. It’s quick and easy to see at a glance the range of the Center’s offerings, and to navigate the site to get the relevant information.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Walker’s site is the blog, where visitors to the museum can comment on shows and talk to specialists. According to the Walker’s director, creating the blog has opened the door to feedback from a multiplicity of voices. The blog serves an educational purpose, but most important it helps to promote a community. People feel connected to their local museum and to each other. The “local” aspect is the most exciting part, as art centers everywhere both feed on and draw from the artists who surround them.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Solving complex problems with simple designs
Design for the other 90%, the currrent exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York City, takes as its starting point the following quote:
“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.”
—Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises.
Take a look at the exhibition’s website to find out how simple it can be to bring life-changing solutions to the world’s disadvantaged.
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