Morris & Co

The William Morris gallery in Walthamstow, London has undergone a major refurbishment. The curators asked us to create a game to help visitors understand Morris's business. The final result is surprisingly addictive and gives a real feel for the challenges Morris faced. We worked with Maraid who produced a lovely graphic look which gives modern spin on the Victorians.

William Morris map

The William Morris map allows visitors to explore Walthamstow and find Morris related locations. The exhibit contains both a modern and Victorian map and you can compare the two and see how the area has changed. Thanks to Maraid for drawing gorgeous maps and other graphics.

Stem cell stories

The Scottish Stem Cell Network wanted to tell more people about the new area of stem cell therapy. There's a lot of research going on in Scotland in this field and the possibilities are very exciting. But how do you make the link between the complex cell biology and real medicine? We created two characters, 'Molly' and 'Jim', and tell their 'Stem cell stories' which explain how different types of stem cells could be used to cure some common medical conditions. There's a lot of interest in the exhibit and its going be installed in the Dundee Science Centre, The Glasgow Science centre and various science fairs. Thanks to Bivouac for lovely drawings of Molly, Jim and everything else.

Stem cell dilemma

The Scottish Stem Cell Network were also keen to warn people about unscrupulous clinics who offer untested or unsafe stem cell therapies. Stem cell therapies offer great hope for the future but the technology isn't quite ready yet. However, there are a lot of clinic web sites offering 'miracle' cures. We created a simple clear exhibit which helps potential patients tell dodgy sites from legitimate clinics. There's a lot of interest in the exhibit and its going be installed in the Dundee Science Centre, The Glasgow Science centre and various science fairs. Thanks to Bivouac for the graphics.

Gene therapy challenge

The Science Museum in London asked us to create an exhibit on the complex topic of gene therapy for cystic fibrosis. To make things more difficult gene therapy isn't yet possible. Inspired by spy dramas such as Spooks we created a sophisticated exhibit which uses short games to explain the gene therapy process. The gallery version is controlled by a real physical 'Big knob' to give visitors a direct feeling of control. Thanks to Rose Tomlinson and James Bates for making it look great.

Patient of the future

The Science Museum in London wanted to explore how we'll be using genetic tests in the future. Is it fair to deny sick people a drug just because they have the wrong genes? It's a complex topic and one that could easily have become dry and abstract. We kept the exhibit direct and simple by controlling it with just two buttons labelled 'Yes' and 'No'. We also created a whole cast of weird and wonderful patients who show that even technology is different in the future, people are going to be pretty much the same. Thanks to Rose Tomlinson and James Bates for making it look great.

Design a plane

The Yorkshire Air Museum were looking for a way of bringing to life a local aviation pioneer called Robert Blackburn. There aren't many pictures of Robert and he always looks very stern. We created an interactive which lets you relive the decisions the Blackburn Aircraft company made when designing three of its aircraft. Design your aircraft and then try and test flight to see if it flies. Thanks to Bivouac for design and plane illustration.

Customs Cutter Simulator

The Merseyside Maritime museum had a problem. How do you communicate the challenges and visceral nature of ships and the sea using static objects in glass cases? When the gallery is focused on Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (tax collection) the problem becomes acute. We used 3D game technology to create an exciting simulation of sailing a Customs Cutter on a mission to catch offshore smugglers. Paragon Creative created a full size reconstruction of a Cutter wheelhouse, complete with steering wheel and throttle. Visitors sail down the river and need to avoid the shore, buoys and other ships. They also need to deal with real Customs issues such as tainted fuel and maritime law. Not surprisingly, this has quickly become the most popular exhibit in the gallery.

Find out
more about Merchant Adventurers

Find out more is one of two kiosks I created for the Company of Merchant Adventurers in York. This is an information rich exhibit containing a complete story of the hall, 3D reconstructions of the hall through the ages, a timeline and a quiz. The exhibit is constructed so that it is easy for the Company staff to update the content. It is also being converted to run on the company's website and will be distributed on a CD to schools in the surrounding area. For this exhibit I worked with Bivouac for the design and illustration and Bright White for the 3D animation.

Be a merchant

Be a Merchant is one of two kiosks I created for the Company of Merchant Adventurers in York. The game gives you a chance to try your hand at being a medieval merchant. You have to buy and sell goods all over Europe and try to make as much money as possible. The game is based on real historical archives and features a stunning medieval map of Europe. For this exhibit I worked with Bivouac for the design and illustration.

Bootham Bar installation

Bootham Bar is a medieval gateway in the city of York. York City Council asked me to create an installation within the Bar which would encourage people to walk round the City Walls. We created a large table projection which features a multiplayer quiz and a film showing the route around the city walls. The installation has been very popular with tourists and you often find crowds of them playing it. For this exhibit we had help from Paragon Creative, Bivouac and Sheard TV.

Extinct!

Professor Ottoline Leyser from the University of York wanted more people to understand the strategies that plants use to maximise their chances of survival. So we created a "sim city" type game which lets you take the role of a wild or farmed plant. Can you avoid getting eaten by pests, attract bees to pollinate your flowers and make enough seeds to ensure your chances of survival?

Thanks to the BBSRC for funding support.

Find out more about the future of science

The Centre for Life had a lot of future science they wanted to put into their gallery without covering the walls with text panels. We created three different exhibits on the subjects of Climate change, Ageing and Stem cells.
Each exhibit contains a vast amount of information to keep the fact hungry happy, lots of gorgeous photos and there's even a quiz to draw in the less enthusiastic. The exhibits are constructed so that it is easy for the centre staff to update the content if the science changes. Thanks to Bivouac for the graphic design.

The food game

The food game was created for the Newcastle Centre for Life. Players have to move around three different countries to try and find enough to eat. Although fast paced and fun the game also contains a lot of information about the food people eat in different countries. For this exhibit I worked with Bivouac for the design and Dilski for the illustration.

Science news quiz

The Centre for Life were looking for an exhibit to display the latest science news feeds from the internet. The problem is this isn't really new any more. My local Sainsbury's has a newsfeed display and so do some of the bus stops here in York. Nobody takes any notice of them. So we came up wiing in science than they ever expected. As usual, thanks to Bivouac for the "read all about it" graphics.

Multiplayer space game

Spaceport is a new attraction which opened on the Wirral waterfront in 2005. We created an exhibit for up to four players based around a huge projection onto a table. The exhibit features a quiz on the Milky Way and then an exciting race round the galaxy.

Recycle or not

"We want a game about recycling that you play with your feet" came the request from exhibit designers KCA London. They were building an education centre for the waste management company Veolia and were looking for an extra something to bring it alive. We built them a fast moving game where you have to decide which rubbish goes in which bin and then use your feet to guide it there. Think "Pinball meets Dance Dance Revolution". We’ve used the same physics engine as Angry Birds which ramps up the tension for some "will it go in?" moments. Thanks to Bivouac for the graphics.

East Sussex composting game

East Sussex Council are very proud of their new industrial composting facility, and rightly so. It finds a new use for hundreds of tonnes of garden waste and stops it ending up in landfill. But how could they communicate this without getting entangled in jargon and the general ickyness of the process? We focused in on the really fun part of the process - driving the truck. We then created a simple game which lets you try for yourself. Can you pick up all the waste and get it in the right vessel without denting your truck? Thanks to Bivouac for the clean suburban graphics

Wasted

Wasted is a fast moving game I created for the Plasticity exhibition at the Science Museum in London. You have to try and recycle as much rubbish as you can before it fills your bedroom. To make matters worse your mum and dad are out shopping for more stuff - you need to give them the right advice to avoid getting even more rubbish. The only good news is that you're being helped by your two pet mice. Yes, it's going to be one of those days...
Hand-drawn illustrations by Dilski and a clean graphic look from Bivouac give this exhibit a fresh original style

Climate change weather

The Centre for Life wanted to talk about the how climate change could affect our weather in the future. So we created a mini weather studio to let visitors read the weather in the year 2050. The forecast is displayed on an autocue and visitors have to read it while pointing out the features on the map which is displayed behind them. It's not as easy as it looks on television! The exhibit provides several different forecasts to reflect the possible effects of climate change. It was completed in May 2007 and at the time some of the predictions looked a little extreme. After the summer of 2007, with flooding in Northern Europe and heatwaves in the south, it's all starting to look uncannily accurate. Graphics and photo doctoring by the usual suspects

Islington green living centre

Islington Council opened their Green living centre in Autumn 2007. The centre is designed to help people to live a greener lifestyle. Islington had a wealth of information they wanted to have available and rather than print thousands of environmentally unsound leaflets they asked us to create two information rich exhibits which would let visitors email information to themselves. The exhibits are designed so that Islington staff can easily update the content themselves. Each exhibit also has several quizzes to bring the less committed visitors onside! Graphic design by Bivouac.

Art labels

The Science Museum's Energy gallery contains several commissioned contemporary artworks. We created a touchscreen label for each of these to interpret them to gallery visitors. We worked with design company Graphic Thought Facility to make sure that the labels complemented the existing gallery graphic scheme.

Carbon calculator

The carbon calculator was also created for the Newcastle Centre for Life. They had a pretty clear idea of what they wanted so we responded by giving it a cool clean design and adding some elephants... The exhibit asks you questions about your lifestyle and then calculates the amount of carbon dioxide you've produced. Once you're feeling sufficiently guilty it then gives you help and advice on cutting down. Thanks to Bivouac for help with the design of this one.

Gary Hill art interpretation

HanD - HearD variation is a stunning art work by the acclaimed artist Gary Hill. At over 14m high, the projected installation is one of his largest and is displayed in the Science Museum. I created a simple kiosk to interpret the work for visitors to the museum.

Launchpad Trace system

The Science Museum in London revamped its popular Launchpad gallery in November 2007. The museum was keen to encourage visitors to reflect on the experience and leave a trace of their visit behind so we created the Trace system to do this. Visitors create drawings or comments which are then scanned in and displayed on screens in the gallery. Gallery staff can control the whole experience using a web based content management system.

Trash fashion

The Science Museum opened its Trash Fashion exhibition in 2010. The exhibition looks at how new technology is allowing the Fashion Industry to reduce waste and increase recycling. We created an exhibit which allowed members of the public to upload their refashioned garments to Flickr. The exhibit then automatically downloads them and displays them on the gallery.

Visitor feedback system

I created an extensive kiosk system for the Science Museum in London to allow them to collect comments from their visitors on a range of issues. The comments are then moderated and sent back to the gallery where they can be displayed onkiosks, projections or the website. The system is known as Tell and consists of several kiosks and a web based moderating system which is capable of handling over 100,000 comments a year. The images show a kiosk on the theme of Genetic testing for huntington disease

Royal museum project

The National Museum of Scotland is redeveloped its Royal Museum building in a £40m project which involves a complete re-display of all of the galleries in the building. The project opened in the summer of 2011. We're managed the development of over 26 interactive and AV exhibits which span the complete range of subjects from the Big Bang and elephants to wall tiles from Iran (shown here).

Glasgow Riverside museum

The Glasgow Riverside museum was a £74m landmark project to create an iconic transport museum on the banks of the River Clyde, at the heart of the Glasgow Harbour development. It opened in Spring 2011. It was designed by the award winning architect Zaha Hadid. The finished museum has over 100 interactive exhibits. We provided consultancy to enable the planning and commissioning of such a technically complex project.

Science of Survival

The Science of Survival is the latest blockbuster exhibition from the The Science of..., which opened in London in April 2008. After London, it will tour various sites around the world. We provided consultancy to create a personalized visitor tracking system for the exhibition. This uses RfID technology to create a record of each visitor's progress and choices throughout the exhibition. At the end of their visit people can watch as their exhibition experience is added to a 'future landscape' which shows the choices of all visitors.

Science of Spying

The Science of... is a company which specialises in creating innovative and exciting touring exhibitions. When they tackled the subject of spying they wanted a high tech James Bond feel with lots of gadgets. We provided consultancy to help them design and commission a wide range of exhibits including the Face scanner shown above. The Science of Spying was launched at both the Science Museum in London and The Children's Museum of Indianapolis in March 2007. In just over 7 months, it was visited by more than 350,000 people.

Medicine now

The Welcome Trust has developed its former headquarters in Euston Road into a vibrant new public venue for London. Amongst other attractions the building houses the Medicine Now exhibition, dedicated to telling some of the stories of science and medicine since 1930. The trust is keen to provide an stimulating and imaginative exhibition and I worked with artists and designers on several exhibits which include fingerprint recognition, face transformation and iris recognition (shown here).

Connect

In March 2006 the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh opened the Connect gallery. The £1m gallery contains a wide variety of iconic objects and mechanical and computer based interactive exhibits. As software manager for the gallery I delivered 17 computer exhibits, created by 5 different contractors. Highlights included driving with the full size F1 simulator and playing with the intelligent robot colony.

Fashion

The Fashion gallery is an £1m addition to Snibston discovery park in Leicestershire. Although the gallery is the largest fashion display outside London the curators wanted some way of showing the extent of their collections that were still in storage. I provided consultancy to enable the commissioning of several kiosks and the design of suitable software.

Handheld tours

Tate Modern has been running several trial tours using small handheld computers which culminated in the launch of a full scale tour of all the collection displays. I provided consultancy to ensure that the museum considered all of the options available and used best practice in the development of the tour.

The Energy gallery

Energy - Fuelling the future opened in July 2004 at the Science Museum in London. The exhibition contains over 30 innovative computer based exhibits created by a wide range of innovative artists and designers. Highlights include an exhibit which gives you an electric shock, a 14m high ring lined with LED lights and an exhibit that you control by dancing. I managed all the technical aspects of the gallery including the extensive website which was awarded the IVCA Gold award for "Best website". The gallery also won the Design Week "Best Exhibition Design" award.

The Save project

The innovative Save system allowed visitors to the Science Museum to create their own personal web page and use it to save images from a variety of different exhibits. Visitors use fingerprint scanning to identify themselves to the system and over 500,000 visitors used the system to create a web page. I managed the whole system which involved over fifteen different external contractors, cutting edge technology and extensive evaluation.