Recognition

“Second Story has been designing such award-winning displays and interactive media stations for fifteen years for such high-profile clients as the recording industry’s Grammy Museum and the Walt Disney Company. Now they’re dreaming up a totally new way to tell and retell the University of Oregon’s story...Second Story hopes that the interpretive center they ultimately create will not only provide a warm “welcome home” to visiting alumni, but will also help to introduce future Ducks to a University that will shape and be shaped by them. “To think that this will become a more effective way to recruit for new students,” Johnson says, “that’s really exciting.””

“Interactive displays demonstrate how Disney joined the vanguard of the talking-picture revolution by creating an animated film with synchronized sound.”

“One of the most fascinating objects here is an enormous notebook created by Herman Schultheis, a technician in the camera-effects department in the late ’30s, in which he documented how images were produced in “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia.” Next to it, an animated display of the book responds to touch, so you can almost feel the creators’ imagination at work as they transmute real objects into fantastical washes of color.”

“For younger visitors, the museum has interactive displays which enables them to sync music to cartoons in the way the masterful animator himself would once have done.”

“Every gallery is crammed with touch screens and interactive exhibits designed to bring static drawings and documents to life.”

“In Gallery 5 spectators can interact with the film and documentation of Fantasia in a "Shultheis Notebook".”

“If that sounds boring, don't worry...there are 21st century touches everywhere...Touch-screen monitors allow users to browse through relic documents that would normally be kept under glass.”

“Imagine ten Grammy-winning artists, representing a variety of musical genres, all performing at once—but with the sound mixed so that some are dominant and others are in the background to varying degrees, allowing you to distinguish one from the other. This is the museum's three-minute, 20-second lobby experience, as the visitor walks through a short hallway with video looping on both sides, entering the world of music.”

“Interactive displays are an important part of the museum’s mix... [including] a sophisticated, bilingual exhibit on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War and made New Mexico a U.S. territory. Highlighted portions of the treaty link to interviews with historians.”

“The Guest House, set within gardens and terraces, will offer interactive exhibits about Davies, Hearst and Hollywood, with a soundtrack of laughter and tinkling champagne glasses.”

“Perhaps the most complex and intriguing installation at the museum is the Crossovers area. This exhibit is a 19ft. table that acts as both a projection screen and a touchscreen...Up to 20 guests at a time can tap an image that's being projected onto the table to listen via headphones to 150 genres of music. Guests interested in one genre of music can use the table to open up photos, songs, and dialogue about that particular genre's importance and history—possibly linking them to other genres and learning about surprising connections between music categories.”

“If you haven’t checked out the Oregon Historical Society’s dynamite ‘Time Web’ and brilliant trove of historic photographs and documents online, you should. Whether you’re in grade school or graduate school, it is simple to gain access to the online collection...The society’s spectacular online resources are invaluable for rural Oregonians. Many can only rarely visit the society’s research library in downtown Portland.”

“As an extension of its marketing, Skylab worked with award-winning Internet design company Second Story to create a Web site for tenants that acts like social networking sites such as Facebook to market their work collectively.”

“And the library may be the most technologically enhanced tourist site in Washington. There are computer kiosks everywhere, like giant iPhone screens. Touch one, and a detail of the building or one of Jefferson’s books or even his rough draft of the Declaration of Independence is in front of you; touch it again for a close-up, a translation or an explanation. Using a little passport you are issued on entering, part of the official ‘Library of Congress experience,’ you can even save some of these details for further study on your home computer. The library’s Web site (loc.gov) is so extensive and elaborate that, had I only known, I could have toured the whole place without ever leaving home.”