Joy Exhibition

The design process began with a briefing and reviewing process with the exhibition project team. An established style was developed which could be implemented across the whole site in different mediums from shimmer title walls made of hundreds of reflective discs, to printed vinyl interpretation, printed glass decals, paint selection and digital media.

Because of the different mediums, strong simple title typography was proposed, and the typography of the letters J-O-Y were scaled up to create abstract background patterns on the other printed elements in the exhibition. This pattern along with the colour palette provided a continuous thread and cohesion to the visual identity.

For the ‘Share Your Joy’ activity we wanted to create a space where visitors could share their own stories but also contribute to creating an installation themselves. A beautifully simple white concertina wall is the backdrop for visitors to add colourful swatches on which they’ve written their story. A clever design allows visitors to easily slot in their swatch. This wall reflects the exhibition’s themes of personal storytelling, creativity and colour, being a vibrant installation itself as well as a repository of all the joy our visitors want to share.

All elements were professionally designed, printed and installed across the site.

The design team exceeded the brief with an exuberant identity that embodied joy, used colour as a powerful way to express joy, uplifted the architecture of the Immigration Museum and created joyous intervals for visitors moving from the ground floor to the main exhibition space.

The artist commissions also exceeded the brief creating warm, evocative, inviting spaces for our visitors to connect with each other and experience joy.

Joy exceeded the criteria of good design by going beyond a typical exhibition design brief with a ‘whole of site’ approach. The experience commenced in the street, where vibrant window decals heralding ‘JOY’ enlivened the conservative, historic facade of the building – hinting at the exuberant exhibition within. Inside, the design team looked for innovative ways to generate a jovial dialogue with the imposing heritage architecture. Joyful shimmer graphics, wrapped around bluestone columns in the foyer, welcome visitors from the moment they enter. Oversized personal joy stories adorn the grand staircase, playfully leading visitors up the two-level journey to the exhibition. Colourful, translucent graphics also featured prominently in the elevator, ensuring an ‘uplifting’ experience for all. The engagement of quality local fabrication and print companies ensured that the execution of these components was of a high standard. It was critical that they endured over the tenure of the exhibition, but also didn’t damage the vulnerable heritage surfaces when they were removed.

The decision to engage local artists to create the core exhibition experience not only supported the broader creative community, but also generated energy and interest beyond the regular Immigration Museum audience. This approach provided a platform for diverse voices to be heard and celebrated, resulting in an extremely rich and varied visitor experience.

‘Share Your Joy’ was a key component that enabled visitors to engage personally with the exhibition. Visitors first selected their favourite swatch colour and then drew or wrote about what sparked their joy. The design solution of a slotted concertina wall provided an elegant means for visitors to display their responses without the need for pins or tape to fasten them. As swatches were added to the wall, a multi-coloured display of pure joy emerged for everyone to enjoy.

The design had to solve the issue of an exhibition spread out across the site of the Museum. It aimed to announce, ‘here you will find joy’ and create a joyful welcome when visitors first entered the Immigration Museum and where one artwork was situated, as well as provide wayfinding to the second floor where most of the exhibition was installed.

Shimmer panels with the title typography JOY were placed around the columns on the ground floor foyer, in front of the corridor where one of the Joy artwork commissions was installed.

A title shimmer wall was repeated on the second floor outside the exhibition entrance, tying the museum and exhibition entrances together. Colourful interpretation panels using the background J-O-Y pattern clearly signalled that the corridor artwork was part of the Joy exhibition.

Large-scale Joy Pop stories using the J-O-Y background pattern and colour palette filled the walls of the staircase landings and wrapped around the columns on the first and second floor foyers. These interventions embedded ‘joy’ into the museum’s architecture along with bright window decals that repeated the background pattern and bathed the foyers and visitors in washes of colour. These design features provided a trail of joy for visitors to interact with on their journey to the second floor. We even ‘uplifted’ the elevator with chromatic decals!

Because the artist installations were so diverse in style and expression and strong colours were chosen by the artists themselves, we wanted the design to provide a palette cleanser between each space. A quietly vibrant blue was chosen to connect the spaces between installations so the commissions themselves sung and to contrast with these often intensely sensory and colourful spaces. Each artist’s interpretation panel sat outside their space using colours from the palette that complemented their colour choices.

The Joy exhibition has had an overwhelmingly positive impact on our visitors. In an initial evaluation of 151 visitors to the exhibition, our audience says they love the colour, nostalgia and feelings of joy they experience.

‘I absolutely loved how colourful and positive the Joy exhibition was. It felt like an exhibit I had never seen before and was super interesting.’

‘The different interpretations of what joy is for others was very interesting. Colours, forms and the vibe was really engaging.’

89% of the visitors surveyed are feeling more optimistic, and 78% are emotionally affected by the stories and colour. 76% say Joy met or exceeded their expectations.

The ’Share your Joy’ activity where visitors can write their own stories of joy on colourful swatches and add them to a wall makes them feel part of the experience, with connection and sharing with others and enjoying reading other stories rated highly.

‘The board where people posted items that made them happy.’

June visitation figures were double on the previous year and 83% of visitors surveyed were motivated to visit the Immigration Museum for Joy.

These responses prove that colour and design can have a positive transformational effect on our visitors.

We are beyond thrilled with this result!