Blue Telescope, an award-winning, interactive exhibit agency, has recently had success at both the MUSE Awards and the Summit Awards. The company works to highlight the unexpected, bring new perspectives and upend expectations and, to date, it has won more than 100 awards for creativity. It specialises in location-based interactive storytelling experiences that make data beautiful and engage audiences in content.
MUSE Awards – Gold
Blue Telescope won gold at the MUSE Awards with a project created for the Miami Children’s Museum at Miami International Airport.
The Just Plane Crazy interactive exhibit is a selfie station within the Miami Children’s Museum’s satellite exhibit, Plane Fun. Here, visitors can choose from eight interactive, animated backgrounds and five colourful stickers for a personalised experience. At the end of the experience, they can simply scan a QR code in order for their animated selfies to be sent directly to their phones.
Also winning a gold MUSE Award was a Blue Telescope project for the Sloan Museum of Discovery. Within the museum’s Discovery Hall, guests can explore the forces that drive our experiences on the planet, from weather and climate to electricity to air and water pressures. Blue Telescope created a number of exhibits within the hall, including the Climate Climb, Weather Station and Periodic Table interactives.
In Climate Climb, an Arctic-themed interactive, visitors can observe the impacts of climate change over time by adding their own birthday and viewing the historical temperature data from the Flint region for that date. The exhibit dynamically recalls the data entered and displays prior visitor participation. Visitors are urged to take action in a number of ways to reduce energy consumption.
Visitors can combine familiar molecules like salt, carbon dioxide, and rust in the Periodic Table exhibit. Fun animations for molecules in their gas, liquid, and solid states are displayed in a virtual beaker along with information on each element. Visitors choose and combine their ingredients on a large touchscreen display and then entertaining animations and dynamic lighting are used to show that molecule on an oversized periodic table.
Meanwhile, in the Weather Station exhibit, visitors can remix the weather by toggling virtual sliders, creating effects such as thunderstorms and blizzards. Here, they learn about the environmental factors that shape our atmosphere, like humidity, air pressure, and stability. For an engaging and educational experience, dynamic animations and audio supplement the immersive exhibit.
MUSE Award – Silver
The Blue Telescope team also won a silver MUSE award for African American: Making the Nation’s Table for the Museum of Food and Drink/The Africa Center. Curated by Dr Jessica B. Harris, this exhibit explores African American foodways and the impact African-Americans have had on our culinary traditions from farm to table.
The firm was chosen to reimagine the exhibit graphics and furniture with a high-impact and cost-effective solution on a demanding timeline. The new bold colour palette emphasises the vibrancy of the subject matter and also provides intuitive wayfinding. The team was careful to ensure Pantone matching of the graphic panels and millwork in order to deliver a unified experience. The colour palette took inspiration from a quilt that artisans had crafted for the exhibit.
As well as the physical design, Blue Telescope create a bespoke immersive tablescape interactive to look at the complex subject matter of human and food migration. This shared meal, Pass the Plate, creates community, highlights key food traditions, and invites visitors to join in the conversations about how these traditions evolved.
Summit Award – Visionary
Elsewhere, Blue Telescope’s work was also recognised at the Summit Awards. Healthy Choices Can Be Fun, the interactive exhibit that the team created for the Early Childhood Learning Gallery at the Sloan Museum of Discovery, won a Visionary Summit Award.
Blue Telescope created a number of exhibits for this gallery, focusing on supporting healthy everyday living. These cover topics like nutrition and public safety. Three food-related exhibitions encourage families to explore a wider variety of foods and food groups while providing gentle instruction on what makes certain foods special treats or everyday fare. Children can scan food or beverage at a cash register or drink station and get helpful tips from fun characters.
Earlier this year, Blue Telescope announced a series of new appointments and promotions following a successful year of projects
