Rouviere Media

Now that you have determined where to place each of your museum displays, draw a sketch of how you want each one to look. Your sketches can range from a crude drawing on the back of an envelope if a display is small and simple to a detailed measured drawing on graph paper for a more complicated display. Some people like to  draw a simple picture of each item to scale on graph paper and cut them out and move them around on graph paper that is scaled to your available space so you can figure out where you want everything to go. Museum professionals make three-dimensional models of where everything in a museum is to go before they actually produce an exhibit, because a large one can be as expensive as building a house and they don’t want to make a mistake.  This is not necessary for home museums, but making a good detailed drawing can save you a great deal of time, money, and wasted supplies in preparing your display.
Here are some simple rules of composition that will make your exhibit more attractive:

 If possible, try to follow the flow of the story you are trying to depict.  Determine in advance what that is. Are you trying to show a chronological story? Do you want to arrange the items in such a way as to show which item is more central?  Do you want to emphasize one item that illustrates the central theme of the display? For example, a wedding photograph could be the central item in a display on a wedding that also included a silk flower wedding bouquet and other items from a wedding.  The photograph with a small simple label on it, something as simple as the couple’s name and the date, could enable viewers to tell at a glance what the display was about. A framed wedding invitation next to the photograph would serve even better as a subtle label.  If you are doing a display that is intended to capture a moment in time,  your goal will be to arrange the display so that it appears as though the moment just took place or is just about  to.  You probably will want to have a more informal arrangement that looks like items were just placed casually on a desk or dresser or hung on a clothes hook, as opposed to framing and matting the items.  

Choose a color scheme for the display that goes with the theme, the artifacts, and the space and ties them all together:

1.      The mood you want to convey.  Color communicates symbolically and can tie a display together in a simple way faster than any other visual device. If you had ancestors who fought on opposite sides in the Civil War, displaying momentos of the Union ones on a blue background and the Confederate ones on a gray one can communicate quickly and easily what the theme of the display is. Red, white and blue or olive drab for a World War II display would capture its mood immediately. White with floral colors would  be  appropriate for a wedding display. Choose a color scheme that can help you communicate your message.

2.     The heirlooms. Our grandmother’s kitchen took its color scheme from my grandmother’s old cookstove, which was gray porcelain with a blue speckled design. We found modern gray laminate countertop with blue speckles that matched it perfectly. In stripping multiple layers of paint from old chairs that had belonged to her, we found that the bottom layer of some of them matched the blue speckles, so we repainted the chairs and her Hoosier cabinet, which also had been painted many times, in the same blue. Gray crockery from her original kitchen and a flea market,  blue and white china, and red touches such as her recipe box and red Depression glass dishes help warm up the display.  It is not always possible, but it helps unify the display if you can pick colors from at least some of your heirlooms.

3.     Consider the era the display represents. Psychedelic colors look terrific in a display of 1970s memorabilia, but would be out of place and inaccurate in most other settings.

4.     Consider the setting. If your display looks great in and of itself and the colors are accurate for the message of the display, but it looks terrible in the room you have placed it,  you will dilute much of its attractiveness and impact. Reconciling a display to its surroundings doesn’t have to be as hard as you think it is. For every display, there are always a variety of possibilities, and if one chosen color doesn’t look good with the color scheme of your room,  experiment until you find one that works well with both your display and its setting.