Royal Ontario Museum: Dawn of Life
During my time at Reich&Petch, I had the pleasure of working on the newest permanent gallery at the ROM, Dawn of Life. Almost 1,000 fossil specimens — more than 60% of them Canadian — represent the dawn of life on our planet. Spanning about 4 billion years, this is the first gallery of its kind in North America.
I worked on almost every sign, graphic and illustration in the gallery, though the art direction and majority of the foundation of visual design have already been finalized before I stepped in. Working with production files, importing technical drawings from CAD softwares into Illustrator and making sure English and French text is legible at the same level were some of the valuable lessons I got from this project. Most importantly though, walking in the gallery after its opening in December 2021 was probably the most fulfilling experience I had as a designer in my career!
One thing I’ve always appreciated about ROM’s galleries is the level of interactivity they provide for educational purposes. It’s always fun to have something else to do while visiting museums other than looking at artifacts and reading labels!
I wasn’t part of this particular aspect of the gallery since it’s a different team that works on these, but I did meet the creative people behind them and they do such a fantastic job.
I wasn’t part of this particular aspect of the gallery since it’s a different team that works on these, but I did meet the creative people behind them and they do such a fantastic job.
