Interpretation & Communication
STANDARD: Ensure provided resources are written with clarity, visual consistency, and audience accessibility and inclusion.
Minimum Practice
Minimum practice ensures audiences receive coherent, respectful, and accurate information that host venues can confidently present alongside the exhibition.
Best Practice
Best practice embeds accessibility, inclusion, and audience experience into the design of all exhibition resources from the outset. The visual identity is designed for durability and flexibility, whilst also considering environmentally sustainable practices and materials.
Guidance
How you communicate the themes and ideas within an exhibition, as well as how these communications look, sound, and feel, are important parts of the exhibition information package. These resources may include didactics, publications, press guidelines, and social media communications.
Signage & interpretation
Exhibition signage, introduction panels, artwork labels, and other didactics can help audiences learn more about the themes and ideas within an exhibition, as well as ensure that important information is being communicated.
Meeting the needs of audiences may include making a large font version of all information available, signage in braille, labels in languages relevant to the community or the people represented within the exhibition, audio guides, plain English signage, informative panels aimed at children, or video tours viewable online. Often for a tour, labels travel with the exhibition and are reused, while the introduction signage is printed for each location as the tour progresses. It may be possible to include a Welcome to Country introduction relevant to your tour written by an Elder or First Nations person on Country at each location, and/or facilitate a live Welcome to Country at the opening event. What you can factor into your tour for signage and interpretation will depend on your budget, but designing for durability, accessibility, diversity and cultural inclusion, and environmental sustainability is important when you are devising your budget.
Taking time to consider the branding and identity of an exhibition that will travel to multiple locations is recommended. Certain colours, fonts, mastheads graphics, or other visual features can ensure that your touring exhibition looks cohesive across exhibition collateral and various locations with different levels of resourcing and architectural features. Make sure to provide information on RGB/CMYK codes for tour colours, ensure fonts are accessible or licenced, and include any graphic features in the exhibition information package. Explicitly outlining any logo inclusions, acknowledgment texts, or exhibition bylines is also important, particularly if funding or partnerships are involved.
While preparing signage and interpretation materials for host venues is best practice, it is also important to be flexible and work with venues to ensure that these materials suit their space, capacity, and audience. For example, some venues may have permanent walls of different colours and allowing them to create new labels that match this colouring may be desired by the host venue. Other host venues may want to enhance the offering through additional signage relevant to their community. Allowing space for collaborative approaches to interpretation materials can ensure a better experience for venues and their communities.
Catalogues
Producing a catalogue or informative publication for any exhibition can be beneficial for creatives, lenders, audiences, and organisations. Longform, critical, or academic writing, alongside Easy English and Plain English writing about exhibitions can be an important outcome for all parties, as can images recording the work/object contributions to the exhibition. One benefit of creating a catalogue or publication for a touring exhibition is that the readership expands with each iteration. Creating a physical catalogue should be accompanied by digital formats for access and inclusion. These digital documents or audio recordings should be able to be downloaded via a tactile or raised and clearly signposted QR code, as people who are blind or have low vision may not be able to locate them independently, and therefore may not be able to access the associated digital content.
Having a catalogue for sale at the front desk or in the gallery/museum store can usually be accommodated, but it is important to note that some spaces will not be able to make sales. You may have host venues purchase the catalogues or publications to then sell, or you may have them on consignment to be sent forward to the next venue, ensuring you keep a tally of what has sold at each venue for invoicing. To share further writing, images, and information of key people and themes with audiences, you may also be able to fully fund a smaller publication that can be handed out for free at venues, which increases access and alleviates the administration associated with tracking and processing sales.
Media & Communications
Including a press release template for host venues to edit in your exhibition information pack can assist with generating local media and interest. Local media is increasingly constrained in regional areas, so it is important to acknowledge that at times there will not be any local media attention despite best efforts. Working with the host venues to engage the marketing and communications teams within their local council area may be an available avenue. Including funds for advertising in the budget may also be an option for you. Thinking about how your exhibition will be represented on social media is equally important. You may want to outline certain hero images or text to be used on socials. Providing predesigned social media graphics can assist with cohesive communication of your exhibition during the tour. It is important to indicate how creatives, exhibition partners, or other organisations would like to be tagged or credited within posts and stories, which should be included in contracts and agreements.
It is important to engage with communities and partners using their preferred methods of communication.
While many people with disability use websites for information, social media is not accessible to all communities. Other communication channels include print materials, flyers, radio, and newsletters (print and digital). Best practice is to create and publish all marketing and communications materials in accessible formats.
Where this is not immediately achievable, a staged implementation approach may be required. Exhibitors should prioritise formats and communication channels based on stakeholder requirements while considering available resources.
Materials that may be included:
NOTE: Venues often require this information in advance of the exhibition being displayed at their venue for promoting their upcoming exhibitions and programs.
- press release template that is editable, as the host venue may want to include it in a larger offering or add a statement from a local perspective.
- social media template.
- digital invitation template.
- title graphic file.
- high-res images + captions, ensuring copyright allows for the use of these images.
- logos and acknowledgements, keeping in mind the contractual requirements of any funders or stakeholders.
- Invitation guest list, including any contractual requirements of funders or stakeholders.
- sign off requirements for any marketing materials produced by the host venue, with consideration to copyright, moral rights, ICIP, and access and inclusion.
Case Studies Of Best Practice
Country Arts SA – Naomi Hobson: Adolescent Wonderland Tour branding & identity
[TO BE DESIGNED] Examples of the interpretation and communication resources attached to the Country Arts SA and Art Gallery of South Australia touring exhibition Naomi Hobson: Adolescent Wonderland.
Ready To Use Support
Accessible Arts – Signage and Communications Checklist
A checklist for venues to consider signage and communication inclusions.
Guide Dogs NSW/ACT – Digital Accessibility for Social Media
Produced by Guide Dogs NSW/ACT, this resource provides a checklist of accessibility guidelines to ensure that your social media posts are accessible for as many people as possible.
Useful Resources & Further Reading
M&G NSW – Exhibition Labelling
A guide on exhibition labelling produced by Museums & Galleries of NSW (M&G NSW).
M&G NSW – How to Promote an upcoming exhibition
Timelines and advice on promoting an upcoming exhibition. This resource was written by publicity consultant Patrizia Di Biase-Dyson as a part of the Museums & Galleries of NSW (M&G NSW) ‘Engaging Art Initiative’.
Further questions or
broken links?
Contact your State
or Territory NETS Australia agency