A People’s Contest Exhibit

Stories of the American Civil War, told through the lens of human experience.

The American Civil War Museum aims to tell the story the civil war through the perspective of diverse and personal narratives. Moving beyond the stories of wartime generals and soldiers, ‘A People’s Contest’ features the stories of civilians, wives, brothers, enslaved and free African Americans, and all the diverse perspectives influenced by the war. The exhibit reveals the complexities and impacts of war beyond the mainstream political narratives.

Working with a team of designers, researchers, and writers, we constructed the visitor flow to create an impactful emotional connection with the visitors. Shifting between didactic and emotional moments within each chapter, the didactic moments are expressed through interpretive content and artifact stories, while the emotional moments feature engaging media and scenic expressions.

We used the emotional heat map as a guide to express the emotional visitor journey and desired impact, plot experiences with high emotional values in red, while didactic, information-driven areas are charted in blue.

With an effort to appeal to a younger audience and move away from the typical ‘war museum’ aesthetic, I created a comprehensive graphic system that would be applied to the interpretive panels, way finding, infographics, and interactive designs within the exhibit. I selected a neutral cool-toned palette that would compliment the warm tones of the dated artifacts and allow the focus to stay on the large colorized historical portraits. For the typographic style, I selected Trade Gothic to convey a modern directness to the headlines, and The Antiqua, which is classical in aesthetic for body copy.

The exhibit showcased more than 400 historical artifacts from the American Civil War, which were organized and displayed alongside personal narratives, quotes, and colorized photography. As the production design lead, I helped structure the casework system and create guidelines for the production designer, writer, and fabrication team to execute accordingly. The series of documents laid out more than 20 cases, 400 artifacts, artifact labels, and interpretive copy.

This exhibit was featured in The Smithsonian Magazine and the Washington Post