Age of Mammals
LocationNatural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, CA, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, CA
A museum experience 65 million years in the making, Age of Mammals displays some of the Museum’s—and the world’s—most awe-inspiring fossil mammals, many of them exhibited for the first time. Adding “how” to “wow,” the all-new Age of Mammals also shows as never before how a special class of animals—including human beings—evolved amid tremendous changes in the Earth’s environment, and dramatically altered the Earth in turn. Second Story’s seven media installations play a vital role in the first large scale new exhibition to debut at the Museum in twenty years.
Press & Awards“Ideas, Prototypes and Experiences: Designing Experiences,” The Fundamentals of Interactive Design, Michael Salmond & Gavin Ambrose, April 2013
The creative team at Second Story developed interactive touch-screen experiences for visitors to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, US. Narrative and engagement were at the centre of the design to engage visitors with the exhibits.AIGA | 365 | Design Effectiveness 2011, Award Recipient, October 2011
The 135 selections from the “365 | Design Effectiveness 2011” competition exemplify the most effective current work in communication design, as chosen by a distinguished jury of design peers. The overriding criterion for inclusion in the show is excellence as the successful pairing of effectiveness and aesthetics.“Cenozoic L. A. Stories,” Science, Debra Pires, October 2010
Interactive kiosks included in each major section of the exhibition allow visitors to examine change in habitats over time, explore relationships among different groups of mammals, learn more about the morphology and behavior of the animals, and quiz themselves about mammalian biology. The displays and interactive media seem quite effective at conveying information. Even those who have never had a course in evolution will probably find the phylogenetic tree of mammals easy to understand. As an educator, I was encouraged by watching children between the ages of 6 and 12 work on a topic at a touch screen until they had figured out.
© 2015 Second Story, Inc.