top of page
Les Mason:
Mindplay
Branding | Digital Exhibiton | Curation
Curating and Exhibiting Communication Design
Our task was to work collaboratively to curate, design, and launch an online ‘Les Mason’ exhibition.
In this project, we have been dealing with lots of historical material, we expected our online exhibition to be informed by contemporary communication and exhibition design practice and will appeal to both specialist and non-specialist audiences. Our exhibition is an innovative design solution for a web-based curatorial project that engages with Les Mason's practice.
Our design outcome includes a fully responsive web-based exhibition, an outstanding exhibition branding based on Les Mason's design, written stories about Les Mason, and promotion programmes.
“MindPlay”
Our exhibition name “MindPlay”. The title “MindPlay” ought to give the audience a peek into what they can expect from the virtual exhibition in terms of engagement and experience through the exhibit’s different functionalities and features. Furthermore, the title aims to show and put emphasis on the core of the exhibition — a focus on Les Mason’s creatively unorthodox design process, a peek into his mind.
Target audience
Free for all — the exhibition aims to ideally target a wide audience. The objective of the exhibition is to present Les Mason to both creatives and non-creatives in a way that would get them to learn about the designer beyond his works. The aim is to give the audience an unprecedented immersive sensorial web experience through Les Mason’s design perspective.
Taking inspiration from the Bauhaus and the Memphis design principles and approach, which we find may have aesthetic resemblances with Les Mason’s work, the brand identity of the exhibition aims to feature a mishmash of bold colours, shapes, patterns, and lines of various forms. These design elements may be used coherently, albeit with a deliberate lack of rigidity, into creating or designing the different materials in the production of the exhibition. This design approach ought to reflect the boldness of the creative provocateur that is Les Mason.
#8D0F80
#005928
#004296
#E10414
#FFE500
#E34F0E
Various shapes were used to create custom logo letterforms. This approach encourages the audience to explore possibilities through forms and shapes, much like how the exhibition aims to encourage people to view Les Mason’s works through his methods. The design also aims to re-imagine various works of Les Mason into a logo.
We designed many graphic elements as an integral part of the brand identity as they represent Les Mason’s stories. These elements will be part of the brand identity so they may be used across different materials to represent Les Mason’s stories as featured in the exhibition.
The exhibition aims to promote the RMIT Design Archives collection of Les Mason’s works. It aims to be perceived as a non-intimidating show that presents Les Mason’s works to the public-free for all and should easily be understood by all.
Thus, through the exhibition’s brand identity, from the title down to the logo, colours, and shapes, “MindPlay” aims to attract audience to learn more about the designer beyond just a display of his works, but also through his history and design process.
Les Mason: Mindplay is an immersive virtual exhibition exploring the prolific career of the late American/Australian graphic designer Les Mason. Mason’s work has been instrumental in introducing graphic design as a profession in Australia, and establishing the foundations of what we understand as design studio practice today.
Especially notable is Mason’s design and creative direction of 77 issues of the food and wine publication Epicurean Magazine from 1966 to 1979. Beyond his groundbreaking work for Epicurean, Mason’s branding work for companies such as A.R.C Weldmesh and The State Bank produced extraordinary, eclectic graphic designs for posters, brochures and campaigns, which are explored in this online survey of his work.
The exhibition was planned to focus on a physical exhibition that will be launch in the RMIT Design Hub gallery while having a digital space as a support and a marketing strategy. However, due to the unforeseen COVID pandemic, a strict lockdown protocol has been announced in Melbourne and the RMIT Design Hub gallery was forced to remain closed. Therefore, we changed our strategy and move the exhibition fully online. It was a very adventurous attempt as the key points of having an exhibition were to allow audiences to relax, to enjoy, and to immerse in the environment and to promote audiences to resonate with the artist and his artworks through this immersive experience. On the other hand, an online exhibition was still a new concept at the moment (2020), which is why we think our online exhibition is also an exploration with great potential.
Our focus points lie in how to create an enjoyable and unique experience that is different but as good as the physical exhibition. This is why we created many unique and playful graphic elements based on Les Mason's style and his works and made the website fully responsive and very interactive. We believe that adopting various interactive features is the best and the most effective way to improve user experiences.
Promotion Programme
bottom of page