Design Museum London

Client: Design Museum, London

Project: Permanent Collection Displays, Interpretation Toolkit, Heritage Lottery funded

Collaborators: Studio Myerscough (Design), John Pawson (Architect), Design Museum team

In 2016 Design Museum moved to a new site in Kensington. This involved a transformation of the museum’s identity and a complete redisplay of the permanent collection, complemented by an ambitious programme of temporary exhibitions.

Tim Gardom Associates worked closely with teams across all departments at the Design Museum London to develop and implement a new narrative-led vision and interpretation plan. We also created an 'Interpretation Toolkit' for the museum to deliver its interpretive plan, audio-visual and digital and learning strategies in years to come. 

The ‘Interpretive Toolkit’ includes decision making aids, collaborative processes and activities, templates and action plans for developing exhibition content and sharing outcomes.

During this long term development partnership, we created a temporary exhibition in the existing museum, the Collections Lab, to experiment and evaluate new content and display ideas, as well as to continuously test the interpretation approach with real audiences.

Working with Morag Myerscough and curators, we co-created the new Permanent Collections Displays with a relevant, accessible and engaging ‘voice’. The displays reflect the shifting nature of designer-maker-consumer technologies and relationships and reveal the stories of design and designers for non-specialist audiences.