Last night, I had the privilege of attending the opening event for the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota’s (CMSM) newest exhibit, Dig It! This event was the accumulation of years of work (decades, really) from the staff at the Museum. I was brought into the project last fall to assist with some of the graphic design work needed for the exhibit. I would be lying if I didn’t say this is one of the most rewarding projects I have ever worked on.
It’s not often that I’m tasked with designing bits and pieces of something of this magnitude. I also no longer work on-site at the Museum, so I didn’t see the final product until it was literally installed on the Museum floor. I can’t count the number of times I was sent photos of a sign I worked on and thought, “Hmm. I imagined that so much different in my head!”. Seeing it on my screen is one thing – seeing it in real life is another.
Yes, that does make designing more challenging, but hey – who doesn’t like a challenge?!
The History of Dig It!
Dig It! actually started as an event held at CMSM to give children the opportunity to explore various construction equipment. In 2018, this event exploded and gave kids (and adults!) the chance to actually operate things like excavators, backhoes, dump trucks, and so much more. The two-day event also included an Education Day. On Educational Day, high school students were bussed in to explore career opportunities in the trades. They got to learn about becoming heavy equipment operators, project managers, carpenters, electricians, and other skilled workers that the area is currently experiencing a severe shortage of. The idea behind Education Day was to show students a fulfilling career path they may not have previously considered otherwise.
The Dig It! event expanded even more when it returned in the fall of 2019. This was my first experience with the event, while I was the Director of Marketing for CMSM. I cannot even begin to describe the amount of planning that goes into organizing an event like this, but I can say that it was totally worth it. I have never seen so many excited children before! My parents even brought my kids so they could join in on the fun while I was working the entrance gate. The weather was less than ideal, but that didn’t slow anyone down! The sponsors, volunteers, partners, and staff at CMSM poured hours upon hours into creating this experience for the children of southern Minnesota, and it did not disappoint. It is still one of my favorite memories of my time at the Museum.
Unfortunately, you all can imagine what happened in 2020. The pandemic forced the cancellation of the event, but that would not be the end of DIg It!
Dig It! Exhibit
Which brings us to Dig It!, the exhibit. I was brought in October 2021 when I had the opportunity to visit the Cemstone plant in Rosemount. This was such a fun experience for me, and yes my two boys were entirely too jealous when they saw the photos I brought home from my little field trip. That’s one of the things I love about my job – this was all for work. The ability to observe a Batch Man working and watching the cement trucks come and go really helped me wrap my head around how the brilliant CMSM team was going to translate it into an exhibit for children. Several of the photos/videos I took that day are included in the Ready Mix component of the exhibit.
Exhibit Graphics by BRYMA Designs
In addition to the photos, audio, and video from the Cemstone plant, the exhibit also needed a logo. This is where I got to spend a few hours in my happy place (aka, Illustrator) coming up with the perfect graphic to represent what this exhibit was all about. The exhibit also needed things like donor signs, instructional graphics, informative signage, and of course marketing materials to pull it together. Some of these were very simple and straightforward, while others took a little more trial and error and a few phone calls to the helpful people at SignPro to get right (I’m looking at you, Drone joystick controller!).
For several of the signs, I had to design around placeholders for things like buttons, aggregate samples, or other interactive components that the fabricators at the Museum would add later. Last night was my first time actually seeing how it came together. If you’re anything like me, you know there’s a bit of anxiety when you send a design to the printer and wait for it to come in, just to be sure everything turned out how you imagined. With this project, there’s a whole other level of anxiety to see how designs fit with the 3-dimensional pieces. I’m happy to report that everything looked great and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief!
Check it out!
The exhibit officially opened to the public this morning, March 9 at 9am. I strongly encourage you to take the kids and check it out for yourself while you can. My family spent two hours digging, driving, exploring, and flying and we could have easily stayed two hours longer. The kids talked about it the whole way home and woke up this morning begging to go back! Where else is a toddler able to operate a life-size crane, dig in pea rock with a REAL excavator, fly a drone just like construction workers use when building roads, mix a batch of cement, or see how a quarry works?
That’s right, nowhere.
If you do go, send me a text and we’ll meet you there!
