November 13th and 15th, 2012

The week of November 5th-9th, the Museum staff was out of town for the SEMC Annual Meeting in Williamsburg, VA, so Demone and I worked independently on wrapping up the edits on our labels. We also finalized our font and color scheme. We decided to use Bookman Old Style as the font for our exhibit labels and narrowed down color schemes to either black font on a pale peach background or black font on a light grey-blue background. 

On Tuesday, Demone and I went up to the Museum to examine the different types of labels and layouts used in current displays. We explored each exhibit and took notes on the font sizes, the style of the label's backgrounds and the size of the labels. We then decided what size we would like our labels to be and what color we would like the background to be. We decided to stick with our initial decision to have a solid color background for the text, and after discussing color choices with Ms. Bryner, decided that black text on the blue-grey background would be easier to read. 
After we had finished deciding the size and color of our labels, we finished scanning in photos of which we only had hard copies. 

On Thursday, Demone and I went back up to the Museum, this time to sketch the layout of the area where we will be installing our exhibit. Demone sketched the layout of the wall space while I drew a bird's eye view of the room. We decided where we would like to place the curios and how many label panels we would need to have printed. 

After mapping out the space, we had a better idea of how much room we would have to display objects and so we worked on finalizing our objects list. We tried to make sure that our final list of objects represented a variety of cultures and time periods, but would also fit in the space that we had. 
During the second half of our time on Thursday, Demone and I met with Dr. Whittington and Ms. Bryner to discuss designing our labels and the process of having them printed. Dr. Whittington showed us how to use PowerPoint to create an exhibit label.
Over the Thanksgiving break, Demone and I will do one last round of editing on our exhibit labels and narrow down our photo choices so that when we start back on the 26th, we can begin the process of building the exhibit panels.