Behind The Sign: How Do I Build A His­to­ry Wall?

If you’re think­ing or con­tem­plat­ing a his­to­ry wall for your facil­i­ty, you’re in the right place. We chat­ted with our Envi­ron­men­tal Graph­ic Design­er, Andrej Stein­bergs, on ​“How to his­to­ry wall” and we’re excit­ed to share some ques­tions to ask, and his exper­tise, with you.

How do I know a his­to­ry wall is the right solution?

Devel­op­ing a his­to­ry wall can be a very daunt­ing task and may not be the right solu­tion for every­one. Here are a few ques­tions to make sure a his­to­ry wall is right for you.

Iden­ti­fy your ​“Who, What, and Why.”

• Why are you cre­at­ing a his­to­ry wall? 
• Who will be the audi­ence view­ing this wall? 
• What do you want your audi­ence to learn/​remember when they walk away? 

The answers to these ques­tions will be a great asset as you move for­ward in your his­to­ry wall devel­op­ment. Know­ing what you want your audi­ence to remem­ber is key, this will dri­ve the design of the dis­play and the orga­ni­za­tion of content.

I need a his­to­ry wall, now what?

When you know, you know. If you’re con­fi­dent a his­to­ry wall is need­ed, here are some next steps to devel­op your story. 

Cre­ate a chrono­log­i­cal list of impor­tant events in your his­to­ry and a rat­ing sys­tem for these events.

• Rate each event as far as importance.
  
• Rate each event as far as con­tent to support/​tell the sto­ry of the event (pho­tos, news­pa­per clip­pings, etc.) 

You can’t show every­thing. Too much infor­ma­tion can over­load your audi­ence and be a dis­as­ter to com­pre­hend. This process will help nar­row the scope of con­tent that goes on the wall. Pic­tures say a mil­lion words, so if you don’t have sup­port­ing con­tent for an event then you’ll want to re-eval­u­ate shar­ing or find a way to tell the sto­ry a differently.

“Curat­ing the appro­pri­ate con­tent is one of the most daunt­ing aspects for our clients,” says Stein­bergs, ​“We can help, but ulti­mate­ly we need to under­stand your audi­ence, goals, his­to­ry, and sto­ry in order to present it effi­cient­ly. Once we know your sto­ry, we can begin devel­op­ing a tem­plate, where we will col­lab­o­rate with you to see which designs feel the truest to your com­pa­ny. The more you par­tic­i­pate in the design process, the more per­son­able your company’s his­to­ry wall will be.” 

Hey Andrej, how do you make each his­to­ry wall look unique?

“Often his­to­ry walls have a sim­i­lar look and feel. The ear­li­er time peri­ods will have a rus­tic look and will evolve to a more updat­ed look for the lat­er time peri­ods. I try to break out of this tra­di­tion­al his­to­ry wall look by incor­po­rat­ing new, or even unusu­al, mate­ri­als that go beyond the ​“his­to­ry wall” or ​“time­line” tem­plate. I like to add lay­ered mate­ri­als and light­ing to bring more impact to the instal­la­tion, mak­ing it jump off the wall and draw peo­ple in. My goal is to cre­ate a dynam­ic his­to­ry wall that attracts your employ­ees and vis­i­tors to learn more about your company.”

What are some recent exam­ples of his­to­ry walls you have designed?

At the Uni­ver­si­ty of Nebras­ka Med­ical Cen­ter, Munroe-Mey­er Insti­tute (UNMC MMI), Andrej designed a large-scale his­to­ry wall. UNMC MMI had recent­ly pub­lished ​“A Cen­tu­ry of Car­ing,” a book high­light­ing their sto­ry and cel­e­brat­ing their cen­ten­ni­al. This was the per­fect resource to pull con­tent and inspi­ra­tion that hit exact­ly what they were look­ing for. Read­ing this book also helped deter­mine the col­or palette and gen­er­al aes­thet­ic of the wall. Andrej added con­cealed LEDs around cer­tain parts of the wall to add dra­ma and dimen­sion. The over­all look of this wall is very impact­ful, don’t you think? (image below)

For Car­son Group, they want­ed a dynam­ic way to share their lega­cy with every­one who walked into their head­quar­ters in Oma­ha, Nebras­ka. I was inspired by the Car­son Group logo and the bold, dra­mat­ic look of their new build­ing. I want­ed to cre­ate a dimen­sion­al pres­ence for impact so I decon­struct­ed their logo and used its shape as the build­ing blocks that pro­trud­ed from the wall. Five pods were cre­at­ed, each high­light­ing a decade or major mile­stone. The angu­lar shapes were also used to crop the pho­to­graph­ic con­tent on each pod. Translu­cent pan­els were used to car­ry ver­biage and more photos.

I need help with our his­to­ry wall, where do I go?

Our team is here to guide you through the entire design process or meet you where need us to. 

Find your expert here to answer all your questions. 

Enjoy more exam­ples below.