Patagonia Museum

Research Page
11"x17"

My current project for my UCLA Designing Experiences class is to make a coorporate museum for the Patagonia company. Every week we are expected to have color 11"x17" sheets of research, work, or diagrams...usually 8 a week. Not only is it a lot of work to collect and do the work in 7 days, but it's also a lot of work to put the images, text ect together in a visually pleasing way. I'm getting better at it, and InDesign as a concequence, but mostly I refer to this class as a part time job with the amount of time it consumes. I've selected four or so pieces from two weeks of work so you can see my idea process. The first page is a research summary page including Patagonia's mission statement:

Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

Big Idea Page
11"x17"

Here on the 'big idea' page I explain my goals, how I want to accomplish them, and what I want the viewer to experience at the museum. I really wanted it to be more than a 'look how great we are" tribute to ourselves company museum. Patagonia isn't about spotlight. The museum will be more like an eco-education center with a small history area. The museum will be at their flagship store in Ventura, CA. You can click any image to zoom in.

Street Banner Page
11"x17"

After an hour of brainstorming, I came up with the exhibit title "Patagonia: join the journey". I like that it invites people to join them in their quest to eliminate the environmental crises (global warming, over fishing, deforestation....). They have great corporate practices from personally checking up on their factories, organic cotton, using the back side of paper, LEED buildings...check it out. I started recycling even more and I am going to try to buy less H&M clothing (soo cheap) and replace it with organic cotton (cotton accounts for 25% of ag. run off that is bad for the Earth). I just wish it wasn't so expensive!

In LA, and many other urban communities have street lamp banners which hang off lamps along the sidewalk. These banners are priliminary mock ups. They are hard to make since they are an odd size (8' tall and only 3' wide). I am going to change them to one image spanning to banners per pole so it's less confusing. I'll show you later.

Opening Night Invitation Page
11"x17"

Another part of the assignment is an invitation for the unvieling. The rock climber (symbolic of the roots of the company as climbing gear) that opens up. The opening is a dye cut (jagged edge) along both the crack and the climber's leg, to open up to a picture of a river and two textures on the flaps. I took all of the inside of the invitaiton pictures last summer while I was in Alaska with my family. The river's name is Fox River. The back, currently blue, will have notes about the company and the goal of the museum. I'll show you this later too.

Title Wall Page
11"x17"

The title wall is the first wall the visitor sees as they enter the museum. Ours is 14' high and 30' long with a 10' tall door just to the right of center. I decided to have the illustrated logo on the wall and have the door cut out the photographic part of the logo (of the real mountain range Patagonia). In front of the wall is a 4 foot hall way and then glass doors with 'patagonia' etched into the outside. My idea is that it gives the logo a real feel and then looks deeper into its roots.

Photos from Title Wall foam model:





The photos make the image easier to understand and give an idea of the actual view of a visitor and the 3D space--plus a chance to take cool pictures! (PS this was such an easier model to make than VP Deli..wow..1 hour instead of an entire day) I used acetate (clear plastic) for the glass door and glued the tracing paper letters to the back of it. This was a little crazy perfectionist of me...but I love the look!

Sadly, my teacher didn't like this idea for the wall. He said it was too coorporate and didn't add to the story/narrative of the museum...yea, guess so...my next idea was to switch the logo and photograph...but I think it needs to be even more darastic of a change. So plan b is to take vertical swatches of different nature photos on the wall over time to mirror the history the museum tracks of patagonia the company as well as nature. I'm not sure though...if anyone else has ideas, I'd love to hear them...it's due on Tuesday. Ekks!

**Raw images are property of Patagonia, Inc. 2009 and have been used for educational purposes only. www.patagonia.com