In 2011, the Spurlock Museum at the University of Illinois celebrated its 100th Anniversary by featuring a special exhibit “Collecting and Connecting: 100 Years at the Spurlock Museum” which detailed the history of the Museum and its impact on the University of Illinois campus during the past 100 years. To highlight some of the unique and wacky items within the Spurlock collection, the exhibit featured a Cabinet of Curiosities. I was commissioned to design the wall labels and exhibit flip books. I worked with Museum staff to develop a style that was inspired by dense, illustrative drawings of Renaissance European cabinets of curiosities.
As part of the initial design process, I checked out several books from the library which featured ornate, archaic illustrations.
I then created a pencil drawing to be used as an decorative border, which included artifacts displayed in the actual exhibit.
The pencil sketches were then converted to editable files in Photoshop and Illustrator.
