This project required us to build an interactive digital sign for a cultural institution in New York. I chose the New Museum of Contemporary Art, which is located in Bowery. The reason I chose it was because I thought it was an unconventional form of a museum considering its main purpose of displaying work that traditionalists would not label as 'art'.
I wanted my project to act as a form of digital, web signage for someone who is completely unaware of the museum and its principles. I also wanted my project to resonate the physical modernity of the building's well-recognized structure. After working and experimenting with a range of different layouts, our class critique sessions and peer reviews led me to my final idea of making the signage in the actual structure of the New Museum building. I made it as simplistic as visually possible in order to mimic the contemporary and modern theme of lack of ornamentation, hence using only the letters of 'New Museum' in a stacked layout.
In terms of coding my interactive signage, I used a combination of HTML, CSS, and Javascript to create a hover effect on each letter. Upon entering the website, the user is shown white stacked letters spelling 'New Museum', and the minimal layout forces them to have no distractions and focus on this sole highlight of the page. This leads the user (as tested on my friends and family) to hover over each letter, which changes the color on each row to a solid shade. This is a minimal yet playful take on contemporary design.
The hover state also reveals text descriptions of different elements of the New Museum, depending on which letter is hovered upon. These text descriptions depict a short summary as well as a clickable link via the letter that takes the user to the website where the information was sourced from. I used Javascript to create this hover effect, to show and hide the text based on what is hovered over. The .hover .show() and .hide() functions were used, and, with a little assistance, I was able to successfully implement this function. In order to make the website less text-heavy, I also added an image for each letter's paragraph with a 50% border-radius and reduced opacity.
My Sign project overall turned out extremely successful since I originally planned something very different and my idea developed drastically the more I worked on the concept of the museum. However, one thing I wish I worked on more was the layout of the page, as the 'hidden' texts, that are only supposed to show upon hovering over certain letters, all appear on the opening screen upon refresh. Apart from this, I'm happy with the finished product, a clean, contemporary, clutter-free digital signage for the New Museum.
