Jake Barton
Founder and Chief Creative Officer
Local Projects
Jake Barton is the founder and chief creative officer of Local Projects, a renowned experience and exhibit design company that engages audiences with storytelling through innovative design.
The multi-disciplinary design studio is celebrated for its cutting-edge work that evokes emotional responses. It leverages the team's expertise in experience design, creative technology, project management, and operations to develop and deliver top-tier, innovative projects worldwide.
The studio’s combination of creative technology and physical design produces impactful signature moments that engage visitors in memorable ways.
Notable projects include the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, which Barton has discussed in his TED Talk ‘The museum of you’; the London Mithraeum; the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum; and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Local Projects has earned numerous prestigious awards, such as the Cannes Gold Lion, Fast Company’s Design Studio of the Year, Best Design in North America Awards, the National Design Award, and the American Alliance of Museums' Overall Excellence in Exhibitions.
Barton is also an Emerson Collective Climate Fellow. The Emerson Collective Fellowship supports visionary individuals in pursuing intellectual, creative, and professional goals. Members of the Climate cohort initiated projects that utilised their deep expertise to contribute to a more abundant and sustainable future.
At the 2025 NEXT IN Summit, he spoke about the power of storytelling and how it can influence audiences and create experiences to "catalyse meaningful action and bring attention to the climate crisis."
Barton founded Local Projects in 2002. Before this, he worked as a 3D Designer/media designer at Ralph Appelbaum Associates, where he created interior architectural environments and media experiences for clients such as the AMNH/Biodiversity, the Intel Museum, the Museum of American Folk Art, the UNICEF Visitors Centre, and 50 years of Globo at OCA/São Paulo, among others.
He holds a master’s degree in interactive technology from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in performance studies from Northwestern University, Chicago.
