ENCORE: The Rock & Fame Exhibition

Graphic Design: Ivy Jenkins & Daniel Mainou

Entertainment Design: Tia Kassim & Juan Bonillo

Welcome to ENCORE, an immersive museum where YOU become the star and experience the path of the legendary musicians that came before you. Here you’ll truly learn what it means to live through the highs and lows of Rock and Fame.

This project was developed by students at Ringling College of Art and Design during the Spring semester of 2024. The team was formed by two graphic designers, Daniel Mainou and Ivy Jenkins, and two entertainment designers, Juan Bonillo and Tia Kassim. The prompt for the project was to repurpose a one-story mixed-use commercial building into an engaging “Sequential Educational Experience.” Over the course of a month and a half, our team created concept designs, visualization materials, and a brand identity for the experience.

Click here to see the project’s Behance page.

Blue Sky

Our team started the process of creating this ambitious experience at the Blue Sky phase. Through many brainstorming and research sessions, we created a preliminary concept statement, exploring it further through the use of The Kipling Method and Personas. We also outlined the educational goals for the experience and the key interactions that guests would encounter. Finally, we also collected reference material and created some initial mood-boards.

General Ideation

After the initial Blue Sky phase, we started the Ideation process.

Firstly, we solidified the overall sequential experience. We created this artwork showing what each room would offer in terms of interactive experiences, themes, and visual style.

Before working on the individual spaces, we developed a floor plan with a enough level of detail to inform our room designs. When developing the plan, we focused on guest flow, capacity, and other technical factors such as egress traveling distance. For this exercise, we didn’t develop the B.O.H. spaces, since they were not included in the template we received. If we were to develop this project further, the floorplan would be extended to accommodate these. Once the floor plan reflected a functional exhibition space, we continued onto the different spaces.

Final Design & Visualization

After creating the artistic direction for the exhibition and the floor plan, we designed the spaces that we planned on developing through our visualization phase. Once we had ideated the content of each room, we moved onto creating the final 3D renders that would show our vision. Given our one-month timeline, we decided to focus on the following 7 spaces: the lobby, Decades Unplugged, First Gigs, Hellscape, Tabloids, Welcome to Hell, and Legacy.

We will now move onto showing the renders and ideation we created for the different spaces we designed.

Lobby

The guest’s journey begins in the lobby, where they can see the exhibit gift shop “Starman Records” and where they can secure their badges and tickets for the experience. Here, at the desk or kiosk, groups will name their band or artist that they will be recognized as in the different spaces going forward. Then, after leaving their things in the secure loft lockers, guests can “walk this way” and enter the exhibit.

Since the lobby is the first space that guests encounter, we decided its design should communicate the dynamic and rebellious nature of rock and roll. Rock culture and design informed the materials, shape language, FF&E, colors, and more. After much ideation, we decided on this design, a monumental welcome into the exhibition.

Decades Unplugged

To prepare guests for their journey, they must make their way through the “Decades Unplugged”, where they can interact and learn about how each era’s defining artists put their stamp on a generation.

For this room, we followed an abstract and dynamic design. This allowed us to focus on graphics & interactives. Additionally, we created a sea of lights representing the crowds that were and are enamored of these artists.

First Gigs

“First gigs” is the next space where guests fully step into the zeitgeist of any proper rock artist, the garage. Here, guests will step into all the iconic spaces where artists have made their name over the years and even play their very own garage performance.

The design of this room integrates more storytelling elements while maintaining the focus on graphics and interactive screens.

Record Label Contract

In this immersive room, guests feel the pressure of signing a life-changing contract. The design for this room would follow a realistic style, communicating mostly through the use of lighting and propping.

Paparazzi

In this room, guests make their way to the next room through flashing lights. These make guests experience for the first time the overwhelming reality of fame and their loss of intimacy.

In-Studio

Guests step into a large room with many recording booths. When they enter one, they will follow a guided interactive to create their music. After professionally recording their music, guests will look at real instances of singers in the studio through screens disguised as studio windows.

Build your Own Concert

After creating their band or going solo, guests will build their first opening concert by selecting different settings. Then, they will go through backstage to get dressed and finally enter the concert stage where they will perform the song they created. This will be achieved through a dome-screen, which will create the overwhelming feeling of performing in front of a crowd. This room will offer a perfect photo opportunity for the guests.

Hellscape, Tabloids and Welcome to Hell

This is when the excitement of fame and stardom comes crashing down. Guests are placed on sets, where they’re examined by cameras or driven past plastic palm trees. From here, they’ll be exposed to the tabloids. Everything from their rise to stardom, to questioning their integrity in the limelight, followed by the many stars that tragically passed away while in the limelight. This is when guests are faced with the Hotel California, the physical manifestation of the loss of innocence and being thrust into an unforgiving world.

When designing this room, we followed a different approach for each section. The first one combines abstract and menacing graphics with an inviting, flashy and colorful photoshoot, showing the many contradictions of fame. The second section focuses on the tabloids, which surround you in an overwhelming narrow path until guests reach the last section. The third section takes the apparent glamour of being a rockstar and gives it an ominous and menacing look. Guests will fully face the dark side of fame.

The Dark Side of Fame

Beyond the arch, guests will walk through a room of testimony from artists about the struggles they’ve personally faced, a solemn, quiet break from the intensity or excitement.

Legacy

Closing the experience is the legacy room, a room where the past and present legends of rock live on from the stamp of genius they each left on the landscape of rock music.

The design of this room represents an abstract stairway to heaven. Where, we utilize the repeating pattern of lights to honor rock legends.

Result viewing & Gift Shop

Finally, guests will enter a room where they will be guided to a screen station. Here, guests will scan their badges and see the journey they went on as rockstars. Custom merch will be created as a souvenir opportunity, which they can purchase at the store.

Operations

Our team also studied what the approximate Operations needs for the exhibit would be. We developed a preliminary study that could serve as a starting point for an Operations department to develop the project in the future.

Firstly, we calculated the maximum and estimated capacity of the spaces in the museum. These capacity studies informed us that the museum could technically accommodate more than 6 thousand guests per hour as a maximum capacity. However, our estimate for real capacity is close to 200 guests per hour. This number is similar to museums of comparable size.

We also calculated the possible staffing needs for the museum. These include 10 facilitators to guide guests through the exhibit interactives and 7 front-of-house staff. This study did not include any other staffing needs that the museum will need in the future, such as maintenance or cleaning.

These operations studies allowed us to test the feasibility of the spaces in the museum and design them with functionality in mind.

Merchandise

Our amazing Graphic Design team didn’t just develop the graphics for the rooms, but they also designed the branding for the merch museum’s merchandise.

Awards

We are also proud to have been awarded ADDY awards for this project. After winning Gold in District 4, ENCORE is being considered for the national awards.