The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich has recently undergone a huge revamp, including the construction of a multimillion-pound wing that has more than doubled the total exhibition space.
As part of the new space – and what constituted a complete relaunch of the Museum – the NMM commissioned a wonderfully innovative digital initiative called Compass Stories.
Visitors are given a piece of card which they can stamp whenever they see an exhibit that interests them. They can then scan their card in the Compass Lounge of the Museum or enter their card’s code on the website when they get home, and they’ll be able to see more detailed stories about the exhibits they singled out.
I had the fun job of writing those stories, working alongside the curators of the NMM and interaction designers kin. I also wrote interactive animations and questions presented on touchscreens around the Museum.
There are so many swashbuckling stories hidden in the history of those objects. It was an honour and a joy to bring them to life.
“No longer is there some kind of suspicious relationship between the ‘real’ object and the ‘virtual’ representation. Here… the two operate with and alongside each other. No longer, for example, is a museum website simply a marketing tool, but an integral part of the museum’s storage and presentation of the information that it holds within.”
Spoonfed
David Varela 