Contempo Museum App
Project
Contempo Museum App
Visual Design, User Experience, Coding
Sky Alsgaard
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The Contempo Museum App is an iPad application designed to educate museum visitors about the principles of design. These principles are essential to understanding and appreciating art, as they are universal guidelines that help the mind make sense of what it is seeing. By highlighting three principles for each of the ten featured artworks from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection, the app provides visitors with an immersive and engaging educational experience.
Chosen by DesignRush for the 2023 Best App Designs for iPad That Utilize the Bigger Screen.
THE PROBLEM
Have you ever been in a museum or come across a work of art that has made you ask, “Why is THAT art?!” and then you listen to an audio tour and suddenly you start to see the artwork in a whole new light?
That is the power of information when it comes to looking at art. Unfortunately, most people don’t have someone walking beside them explaining every artwork they see and only 10% of visitors take the audio tour when visiting a museum. So what happens when most people see an artwork that they don’t understand? What do they do?
They don’t look at….
“It has been documented over and over again that when people are faced with artwork they do not understand, they just walk by it.”
— Austin Clarkson and Douglas Worts, The Animated Muse: An Interpretive Program for Creative Viewing
THE SOLUTION
The Contempo Museum App introduces visitors to the principles of design in an engaging and accessible way. The app aims to teach viewers about these principles, which are universal guidelines that help the mind make sense of what it is seeing, and give context for approaching and interpreting art. Additionally, the app shows how artists take these principles into consideration when creating, making them important knowledge for any art enthusiast.
A survey of 215 people revealed that only 20% had taken a class where they learned about the principles of design, indicating a significant gap in knowledge. The Contempo Museum App seeks to fill this gap by teaching viewers about the principles of design and help them develop a deeper appreciation for the art they encounter.
“The Contempo Museum App is not dumbing down the process of looking at art. Instead it is teaching viewers to really engage with the artwork and that is exciting.” — Kara Q. Smith, Editor at Art Practical; Assistant Curator at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art
