Sherwin David - Project 7: West Office Trip

West Office is a design firm who specializes in museums and interactive science exhibits. The studio consists of multi-disciplinary designers from graphics designers to product. The class field trip to West Office was an exciting and helpful experience. I found out a little bit about their own process in designing as well as an inside look into some of their past and currently in development projects.

West Office believes in story telling and that is why they chose to specialize in cultural, historical and science musuems. Projects they have worked on includes the National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame, Louiseville Science Center and Levis Strauss & Co. On rare occasions, West Office will design for corporations but do not involve itself in any marketing or branding.

In the same manner that Mauk exhibits motions into his designs, West Office believes that interactivity makes for a more dynamic and exciting experience for exhibits. The studios process is very similar to that of an architectural firm and is very client intensive. Like many good and well established design firms, they conceptialize, draw and make models and mock ups to test out their ideas. I thought that the models and mockups that they had on display were fun. They were so tiny and detailed.

Their process is definitely one that we can use and structure our own process around but I thought that we were already doing some of what they did in a just less detailed and less organized way. We have milestones tand deadlines to meet and if everyone takes part then it shouldn't be as hard as it already is.