THE FIELD MUSEUM

Adaptability and customization.

You’ve decided what you need is a hard cover, bound book with beautiful photography; a gift to inspire generosity for your marketing campaign to raise millions of dollars in capital. So, that’s what you ask for. Your designer comes back to you with something completely different. Why would they do that? (Turns out it was a perfect solution.)

Overview

The theme had been determined. The campaign goals were fully developed. The only thing the Field Museum of Natural History needed was someone to design the beautiful, bound coffee-table book they had decided would be the marketing tool for their $176 million fundraising effort. That’s when we came on board.

Needless to say, we were thrilled. Not only would we be a part of a significant project to re-energize a venerable institution in Chicago, we would have an impressive and beautiful book to add to our portfolio.

The Process

We began our work with a very clear directive. However, as we dug deeper and learned more about the extremely complex behind-the-scenes operations of the museum, it became clear to us that what we had been asked to design wasn’t the best solution. The bound book would have a very high per-piece cost, and would not allow for flexibility in talking to the broad range of donors. And so, during the course of our research and conversations, we searched for a better solution.

The Solution

After several weeks of research, talking with staff from a variety of laboratories and centers, we developed an idea for an alternate marketing piece that would better serve the wide variety of fundraising needs at a fraction of the cost.

Our recommendation was to produce an artful brochure with rich photography, featuring a build-in pocket at the back to house smaller, detailed inserts for the many different laboratories, institutions and areas of the museum which each had specific fundraising goals. The inserts could be tailored to each recipient of the materials, allowing for a more personalized method of communication. The brochure and inserts would feature existing photography pulled from the museum’s archives as well as on-location snapshots gathered from scientists and archeologists out in the field.

The pieces would bring to light some of the untold mysteries about the Museum’s 23 million artifacts; things that go on behind-the-scenes and below sea level. They would engage donors on a personal level by stirring memories of their own visits to the museum as a child. They would enlighten donors to some of the facts and figures about the technological wizardry employed to ensure precise climate conditions in this 1.2 million square-foot structure built in the 1930’s. They would help the general public to appreciate the complexity that goes into preserving the spellbinding diversity of artifacts in the Museum’s immense collection.