Museum Of Awe

An interactive pop-up experience at the intersection of art and science.

Positioning + Identity + Experience Design

Clients: Dan Goods and David Delgado of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Challenge

Experiences of awe and wonder can profoundly increase human empathy, community, and peace of mind—qualities that are currently in high demand. The Museum Of Awe seeks to bring these phenomena to communities and rushed metropoles, ultimately guiding visitors towards a daily practice in acknowledging of the gift and privilege of being alive. Our client sought to grow the the Museum of Awe [MOA] brand and scale it’s presence from singular prototype to multi-location pop-up.

Our role was to position the brand and design it’s identity. We also developed a bespoke set of tools to guide the creation of future awe-inducing experiences, and equipped our clients with a narrative to help them gain investment—in order to expand the museum to new audiences and geographies.

What we heard in our interviews

Insights + Ideas

The “un-museum”:

The classic interpretation of the word “museum” comes with institutional implications that threatened to tarnish visitors first impression surrounding the MOA. And evoking the recent trend in experiential “pop-up museums”—ones that rely on popular themes and instagram-worthy photo opportunities—was not the desired direction either. What we found is that the Museum of Awe is in a category of it’s own: the "un-museum." When successful the MOA doesn’t simply administer a prescribed experience, but rather it reframes the daily rhythms of life itself as a result of the experience. “Life. Reframed.” thus became the center of our positioning, connecting out to the rest of the elements within the brand ladder.

Our shared ambitions:

We’ve uncovered five common desires between the “Creators” (our clients), the “Facilitators” (investors), and the “Experiencers” (audience) of the Museum Of Awe.