RISD Grad Show 2020
WEBSITE & CMS TRAINING | RISD Museum & Rhode Island School of Design
In May of a typical year, Rhode Island School of Design installs a large exhibition displaying the work of all graduating grad students. The Grad Show, as it is called, is an important capstone for students to share their work with family and the public, as well as gallery representatives and the press. This, however, was not possible in 2020, with COVID restrictions still in high gear.
Just a few months into the pandemic, we whole of the RISD community found itself pivoting and pitching in where they could. At the RISD Museum, we had just released our first digital publication on our new digital publishing platform, Ziggurat. So in lieu of a physical Grad Show, we stepped in to help create a digital exhibition on Ziggurat. We created a large publication, with sub publications for each department. Each student then received a page that they could use as their thesis show, styling it however they wished. (As a digital publication platform, Ziggurat does not require any coding knowledge to use.)
In May of a typical year, Rhode Island School of Design installs a large exhibition displaying the work of all graduating grad students. The Grad Show, as it is called, is an important capstone for students to share their work with family and the public, as well as gallery representatives and the press. This, however, was not possible in 2020, with COVID restrictions still in high gear.
Just a few months into the pandemic, we whole of the RISD community found itself pivoting and pitching in where they could. At the RISD Museum, we had just released our first digital publication on our new digital publishing platform, Ziggurat. So in lieu of a physical Grad Show, we stepped in to help create a digital exhibition on Ziggurat. We created a large publication, with sub publications for each department. Each student then received a page that they could use as their thesis show, styling it however they wished. (As a digital publication platform, Ziggurat does not require any coding knowledge to use.)
While far outside our usual scope of work, the project was a meaningful one to be involved in. I was the project lead for this publication/exhibition, developing a site in a matter of weeks based on a poster design. After meeting with students and Graduate Program Directors, I put together the site infrastructure, made a series of suggested layouts for students to use, threw together a short introduction animation, worked with a colleague to make an entire documentation site for Ziggurat for this project, and offered on-call tech support to grads.
This was admittedly a very difficult project, and visually it isn't breaking any design barriers. But it felt good to help the grad students get their work on display, and was a big accomplishment for our small museum team. In the end, the project had a great deal of site traffic, and had the advantage of showing thesis work to people far outside of the show's usual audience. It was also nominated as a Webby finalist in 2021.