In the hustle and bustle of Bristol city centre, there is a little known Sanctuary: St James Priory. Founded in c 1129, it is Bristol’s oldest standing building and is of national historic importance.

Today, the Priory is at the heart of the St. James Priory Project (SJPP), a charity that supports people affected by addiction to drugs or alcohol.  Recently, the site has been restored and as part of this programme, Imagemakers was commissioned to create new interpretation and signage.

Our challenge was to inspire a broad range of visitors with the site’s rich historical and architectural story and the unique service the SJPP provides for people with addictions. Design solutions conveyed a feeling comfort and welcome, enabled visitors to easily find their way around the site, and provided information pre and post visit. We designed a branding package and interpretive displays inside the church, café and exhibition space, and created an MP3 audio tour, a guide leaflet and fully updateable website.

The overarching theme was; ‘just as the building is going from dereliction and decay to newness of life, so too are those receiving treatment within it’s walls and this mirrors the hopes and prayers of its Benedictine founders 900 years ago’.  It was essential that the scheme didn’t distract from the tranquil and beautiful historic setting and with this in mind we chose to reflect the artistry of the original Priory in the scheme through the use of contemporary photographs and historic illustrations to interpret the life of the building through time. We also designed bespoke timber exhibition units that complemented the stonework in the Priory with warm, subtle lighting.

‘It has taken us 18 years since first arriving at the Priory to reach this point! What was so nearly a ruin can now look forward to a future. Once more St James Priory is standing proudly in the heart of the city of Bristol.  We hope that all who come here to visit will benefit in some way by having entered its ancient walls.’
Susan Jotcham, SJPP CEO

Blast it! Cart it! Burn it! Bag it! Ship it! 

At the end of the 19th century, the 36 acre chalk quarry at Amberley, West Sussex was in its heyday. It employed hundreds of men, women and horses in hard labour to extract chalk and turn it into lime. Thriving communities and new transport links sprung up nearby, their fortunes closely aligned to the pit.

The quarry owner, Mr Pepper, was constantly on the look out for improvements and invited the Belgian engineer, Mr De Witt, to apply the principles of his revolutionary down draft kiln system. The De Witt block was constructed, housing 18 new kilns. Sadly the design was flawed and production reverted back to traditional bottle shaped kilns.  Eventually, the industry declined and so did the pit, leaving the site to fall into disrepair.

Fortunately, two of the original De Witt kilns still exist. The Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre manages the site and with Heritage Lottery funding, they have embarked on a scheme to restore the kilns and create an exhibition in the ‘Bagging Shed’ of the De Witt Block, now a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

‘The interpretative elements look stunning and it was a pleasure to work with the Imagemakers team to achieve the Museum’s objectives’. Claire Seymour, Museum Curator

We conducted a thorough interpretive planning process to explore detailed themes and storylines; explaining why chalk and lime were important, how the chalk-to-lime process works, how the De Witt kilns came about and why they failed. The scheme we proposed is object led supported by graphics, audio, interactives and sculpture.

Robust display panels with a ‘chalky’ graphic feel illustrate the main activities and visitors can explore authentic objects such as an original workman’s boot, fossils from the chalk or a sample tile box.  There is a rich human story to tell and audio clips of worker’s recollections plus life size sculptures such as ‘cycling home covered in dust’ recreate key moments in each tough working day.

The Armoured Soldiers’ Story

The Royal Armoured Corps has been engaged in some of the fiercest fighting since World War Two in combating the insurgency in Afghanistan.  Now the soldiers tell their story in a poignant new exhibition we have designed at the Tank Museum.

‘A lot of the public basically thinks that we’re getting beat and we’re not. All you hear about is the British casualties.’ LCpl. L, 2nd Royal Tank Regiment

Working with the Tank Museum’s curation and interpretation expert, our challenge was to change public perceptions of the work soldiers do and to show what life is really like. Personal and inspiring stories from all ranks of soldier were placed at the heart of the exhibition.  There are few interpretation panels; instead, a ‘Forward Operating Base’ with authentic objects to demonstrate working, living and combat areas.

Visitors enter the base and find themselves surrounded by the Afghan desert landscape. They are immersed in the sights and sounds of life on operations (dogs barking, the thunder of a passing tank, gun fire). There is a tented dorm, duty watch station, living and survival equipment and even the ‘thunder box’ – an outdoor toilet.  Opportunities to interact include trying on desert kit and there are weapons and large armoured vehicles like Viking troop carriers to explore.

Hours of research and live interviews conducted by Tank Museum staff inform the exhibition. We situated audio points in old ammunition crates and visitors can find out how soldiers cope with the physical and emotional demands. There is front line film narrated by veteran broadcaster Kate Adie and videos of returning soldiers with haunting tales of bravery.

Visitors will be inspired by the soldiers’ courage and leave with a deeper understanding and new perspective on a conflict that is soon to enter its tenth year.

Check out photos below and this video which gives an overview of the whole exhibition.

History Illuminated

There are few more remote or beautiful locations than Strata Florida Abbey on the edge of the Cambrian Mountains in mid-Wales. In fact, the name Strata Florida is a corruption of the Welsh Ystrad Fflur, meaning Valley of (the river of) Flowers. It’s no wonder a community of Cistercian Monks settled here in the 12^th century to live out their lives of austerity, prayer and reflection.

After it was founded, the Lord Rhys of Deheubarth, who left nothing to chance when it came to the afterlife, appropriated the Abbey and endowed large tracks of land in the hope the monks would pray for his soul after he died.

This association with the Lord Rhys and successive generations of Welsh princes and noblemen led to the Abbey becoming something of a paradox: the personal austerity of the earliest monks vs. the huge wealth of the abbey estate in later centuries; the monks’ quest for peace vs. the frequent conflicts with England caused by the monks’ strong allegiance to the Welsh cause.

The monk’s most important endeavours were peaceful, however. They created numerous manuscripts, which are considered by Welsh historians as among the most valuable records of Wales’ early history. Foremost is the Brut y Tywysogion (The Chronicle of the Princes).

With funding from the Wales Cultural Heritage Investment Project, Cadw appointed Imagemakers to improve intellectual access to Strata Florida Abbey and the monastic landscape.

We created a new visitor centre reception area, retail provision and interpretative exhibition, together with outdoor interpretation points and signage.  Colour was an important consideration and we researched a medieval palette, uniting colours from the present landscape – stone ruins, rolling green hills – with activities from its past.

An illustrated mural depicting the Abbey’s heyday in medieval times and a giant map of the estate dominate the new centre and highlight the different activities that took place. Authentic objects on display include beautiful handmade tiles with important symbolic patterns, which visitors can replicate at a tile making station. Two touch screens provide an extra multi-media layer to the visitor experience with games, detailed explanations of key events in the Abbey’s history and links to social media.

“The Abbey ruins are so peaceful today that one of our challenges was showing how busy and prosperous it was in the past.” Charlie Curnow, Project Director, Imagemakers

How do you help school children to understand what it means to live in Somerset and to become future ambassadors of the county?  With ALFA the Alien of course!

Our Creative Director David Revell and the team developed an innovative e-learning product, working closely with the council tourism group and specialist e-learning advisors. The premise is simple and fun – an alien crash lands in Somerset and the players must help him repair his space ship and collect enough fuel to return to his home planet. The players must travel backwards and forwards in time around the county undertaking a wide variety of mini -games, with the help of ALFA’s special tools, to retrieve pieces of his spaceship and fill it up with fuel.

The web-based game is targeted specifically at Primary age school children (KS1 & KS2) throughout the county. It is a unique interactive resource intended to raise awareness of Somerset and develop a greater knowledge of the county and provide classroom support for teachers across a range of curriculum subjects.

Our biggest challenge was ensuring that the final game earned all important playground credibility and ‘buy in’ from the broad range of pupils spanning y1 through to yr6.

We achieved this by giving the pupils ownership of the development process of the content and the look and feel of the design. Creative direction was handed over to the experts at three primary schools. We ran focus groups with the kids to develop themes and the visual appearance. Their knowledge of all things ‘tech’ was amazing and we incorporated many of their ideas into the final game.

A copy of the game will be sent to every primary school in Somerset and is also live on the VisitSomerset website.

“You have facilitated the creation of a quality resource which I’m sure will both encourage families to visit many parts of Somerset and will provide many excellent learning experiences in classrooms across the County. Congratulations to you on this achievement.  I’ve enjoyed being part of the process.” Julia Briggs

Call of the Wild

Can you imagine a world without animals? John Aspinall, founder of Port Lympne Wildlife Park, Kent certainly couldn’t. Sadly though, humans are likely to cause the extinction of a quarter of all known species in the next 20 years, unless we protect them now.

A passionate conservationist, John Aspinall bought land in Kent to house rare and endangered animal species in the late 1950s. One park was Port Lympne, which works with animal conservation charity The Aspinall Foundation; a charity that runs animal protection projects around the world.  At Port Lympne you can see many rare animals including Siberian and Indian tigers, Barbary lions, black rhinos and a family group of Gorillas.

As part of a major restructuring project at the park, we devised a costed interpretive action plan with a raft of creative suggestions to develop an exciting visitor experience and showcase the conservation work. From this we were commissioned to design a visitor centre (The Conservation Station) and a number of external panels and interactive exhibits.

A passport system was one of the solutions we came up with to encourage visitors to move around the site. They receive a Ranger log book on arrival and collect an embossing stamp from each of the walk-through zones.

In the African Experience visitors can play a snakes and ladders style game, painted large scale on the ground, which explains the dangers of habitat destruction. At the Carnivore Territory Café, visitors lift the lid on the daily menu of some of the hungry carnivore residents of the park.

The serious work of preventing animal extinction is the main focus for the exhibition within The Conservation Station. Large-scale backdrop graphics tell the main stories, whilst a number of lively, interactive games help convey key messages to younger audiences.

The hope is that through these interventions, visitors will leave more informed and motivated to support the work of The Aspinall Foundation beyond their actual time on site.

The Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) was a golden age for China. During this period, it became the most powerful and prosperous country in the world as commerce, culture and military might flourished..

Daming Palace in Xian was a fitting monument to this prosperity.  It was the major residence of emperors and the most significant palace complex in the Chang’an imperial city. The grandest of all the buildings was Hanuyan Hall where important guests of the emperor were welcomed. But all that remains of this World Heritage site today are the rammed earth foundations, covered in concrete to protect them, giving no sense of history or wonder.

Imagemakers was appointed to design and implement a £4.2 million Archaeology Discovery Centre to tell the story of the excavation of the Daming Palace site and it’s cultural importance in the region.

Designing an exhibition space for the study and understanding of archaeological practice is unique in China. Visitors are taken through key archaeological processes – from research and surveying to excavation and preservation techniques. Central to the experience is the chance to dig for remains.

Through a mix of state-of the-art technology and bespoke ‘hands-on’ displays, visitors learn why archaeology is important and how fragments of information help reconstruct the past.

Using state-of-the-art gesture technology, specialised touch screens allow visitors to digitally ‘pick up’ and explore precious artefacts. They simply click on the object on a touch screen and an image appears in the air above. The virtual fragments can be pieced together to illustrate a precious artifact.

Groups are encouraged to interact; to trace patterns from pottery and fire their own tiles, to dig for fragments or watch ‘finds’ being conserved in the laboratory. Replicas of a Tang Dynasty building plus dresses worn by courtesans bring the ancient civilisation to life.

The exhibition also highlights the wider importance of heritage to China and also explores world heritage from a Chinese perspective.

The Archaeology Centre opened in October 2010 on the grounds of Hanyuan Hall and took just 5 months to complete. As well as the centre, there is a garden with children’s interactives, café, reception area and 2 lecture halls.  To give you a sense of scale, Hanyuan Hall is 2x the size of the palace at Versailles while the Daming Palace park is 4x the size of New York’s Central Park.  Amazingly, there were a staggering 300,000 visitors on day one.

Team members from Imagemakers worked with the client team in their offices and spent 5 months in Xian, embracing the dynamic, can-do environment. They overcame cultural and linguistic challenges and found a country and a people thirsting for knowledge of their past, with a fantastic story to tell about the importance of heritage to modern China.

View the slideshow

Birthplace of modern tourism; cradle of industry; stronghold of Bronze Age and Iron Age societies; picturesque landscape and wildlife haven – just of a few of the accolades heaped on the Wye Valley, which winds its way along the borderlands of England and Wales.

‘Overlooking the Wye’ is a 3 year Heritage Lottery funded scheme which aims to take an holistic approach to the historic environment by conserving and improving physical and intellectual access to viewpoints (made famous the world over by the Rev Gilpin whose 18^th century writings popularised the idea of ‘the picturesque’) and historic sites, thereby raising the profile of the area as a premier heritage tourism destination.

The project represents a partnership of organisations and individuals, mostly within the bounds of the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

Imagemakers’ first role working with the team was to come up with a new brand identity – not an easy task given the number of different project partners and land owning interests within the project area.

A brand guideline document sets out colour schemes, fonts, graphic devices and a new Wye Valley logo.

Following on from this work we have designed and produced a suite of new orientation and interpretive signage, and fitted out two refurbished railway carriages as a new multi-purpose tourist information outlet, shop, exhibition and meeting space.

View the slideshow

Westfield Community School in Wigan provides a ‘Beacon of Hope’ for the families in nearby communities.

Imagemakers worked with children, parents, teachers and governors to devise waymarking and signage around the School.

The forms and colours of large silhouetted imagery translated in vinyl and acrylic guide visitors around the site, reminding them of our intellectual and social transition throughout school life.

View the slideshow

Berry Head – “400 million years in the making, and still the story continues” – so goes the tagline that features on signage, print, audiovisual presentations and graphics that are all part of the Berry Head On the Edge Project.

Funded by Sea Change, DCMS and the Heritage Lottery, this multi-faceted scheme has led to the creation of a comprehensive suite of new visitor facilities for the Torbay Coast & Countryside Trust’s (TCCT) flagship site.

A common graphic and stylistic language was used throughout the scheme from the point of arrival to the visitor centre exhibition to the site leaflet, guidebook and website. Memorable taglines and key words help ensure that visitors are introduced quickly to the major themes and stories of the site. Rocky textures and shapes reflect the limestone origins of Berry Head and striking colours hint at the limestone flora and the pageantry associated with the Napoleonic forts.

Layered use of media allows visitors to explore stories in greater depth. For younger audiences there are themed spotter sheets, rubbings to collect and a character-led audio trail around the site.

A dedicated AV room in the visitor centre plays a regularly changing programme of films with themes such as geology, history and seabirds. There’s also a general introductory film which projects onto three walls, gradually building a moving ‘scrapbook’ of stories about Berry Head.

One of the more innovative elements of the scheme involves the use of RFID (radio frequency identification) technology. Special ‘story cards’ rigged up with small RFID tags trigger multimedia applications when placed next to touchscreens.

An interactive website www.berryhead.org.uk integrated with social media presences on flickr, twitter, YouTube and facebook, allows users to engage with Berry Head away from the site itself. This includes a introduction to the site’s stories, a species recordingfeature and a printable itinerary called ‘my Berry Head adventure’.

Out and about care has been taken to minimise installations, especially within the Scheduled Ancient Monument. Tasteful zinc etched plaques interpret the original roles of buildings, and the occasional interpretation panel sits neatly on stone cairns.

View the slideshow / View the Berry Head website