Under the employment of Kuuki, I was commissioned by the Western Downs Regional Council and the Lake Broadwater Natural History Association to create a number of large-scale design solutions for MyALL 107, an interpretive visitors centre located in Dalby. This project was completed over the course of seven months. With the purpose of exhibiting information, imagery and specimens to visitors of the area, the design comprised two walls (one 9 metres long and the other 9.5 metres long) allocated to the Western Downs and its infamous Lake Broadwater respectively, with an extensive map of the Western Downs region to be placed on the remaining wall.
Project Manager: Ashleigh Campbell, WDRC Editor: Sarah Fitzherbert
Exhibition Designer, Researcher & Writer (Lake Broadwater): Priscilla Bracks, Kuuki
Writer (Western Downs Natural Wonders): Emily Beutel, WDRC
Writer (Lake Broadwater History): Dr Murray Johnson, Queensland Historical Services
As I was commissioned early in the life of the project, my design grew and evolved alongside the written content. I was tasked with selecting appropriate imagery and creating a number of illustrations to compliment the information provided, while working within government guidelines. Due to the large volume of text and imagery required in the space, I worked extensively with the layout design to create elements that broke up the content while maintaining strong readability and visual consistency. The most profound visual feature is a landscape silhouette – framing, dividing and unifying the content with large tree forms and providing a base for illustrations beneath the main content area. These illustrations were designed with children in mind, placed alongside fun tidbits of information relating to the content above to allow them to engage with the space.
Note: For the purpose of the graphics provided, specimen cases are shown using placeholder images. The actual specimens and depth of their cases will be more apparent in images of the design in situ, to be provided after installation.
Map design
As the centre was located in Dalby, an intricate map was needed to situate both Dalby and Lake Broadwater within the Western Downs and provide the location of museums, memorials bird watching areas and other key sites. In order to manage this wealth of information, great detail was put into the design of keys and visual cues to differentiate types of information.
An additional map was created for Lake Broadwater, using patterns to convey vegetation and overlaying lines to indicate change over time. Key sites were also included as illustrations. The style of this map was designed to appear somewhat dated, in order to complement the rich historical context provided by the photographs and illustrations throughout the MyALL 107 centre.
Illustrations
A wealth of scientific and more simplified illustrations were created to accompany the stories told throughout the exhibition and add visual appeal to compel visitors to explore the information provided.
