Museums need to think a little harder about the messages conveyed by their signage, warns Rebecca Mileham
What is the first thing that greets visitors as they approach your museum: a welcoming “come in” sign, a tempting cafe menu?
Or is it a peevish notice warning that bicycles parked here will be confiscated? (Well-known UK museum, I am looking at you.)
From the first text people see as they arrive to the last as they leave, all words matter. This is the message of Writing for Museums by the associate professor of marketing communication at Columbia College in Chicago, Margot Wallace.
Web text, social-media posts, cafe and shop signs, tour scripts and letters encouraging donations can all serve to support and illustrate important aspects of your museum’s role and purpose.
Informational signage comes under particular scrutiny by Wallace – and so it should. Many museum signs shout, scold and shame, leaving their visitors cowed under the weight of admonition.
But one of the best no-entry signs I have seen perfectly follows this book’s much more positive guidelines. It was at a Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust centre, where a sign on a gate read: “Ducks and staff only.” Short and sweet, it aptly communicates the message that the trust puts wildfowl first.
Gallery text is the one kind of writing outside the remit of this book – but a museum’s authoritative stories are the source of inspiration for writing of all kinds.
As Wallace shows, there is no quarrel between the business of marketing and the communication of a museum’s expertise and character. All words can work towards complementary goals, whether they flow from the learning, marketing, fundraising or commercial departments.
Clear thinking, a clear mission and clear messages are vital. “Every successive page should carry the same DNA,” is how Wallace puts it in her chapter on website writing. For blogging, she gives examples of potential blogposts that could reinforce a museum’s most important characteristics.
The Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina, displayed expertise and wit in a post comparing the masses of two of its heavyweight species, the alpaca and the potbellied pig.
However, Wallace’s thinking was not as evident to me in a different comparison I saw recently, likening the weight of the Lindisfarne Gospels to that of an adult badger. I’d love to understand the reason why.
Wallace endorses the valuable idea that museums can have conversations with visitors – whether through live interpretation or via the myriad ways that words can raise provocative and intriguing questions.
And in the chapter on social media she applauds the Twitter initiative #AskACurator, along with the success of historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson, brought to life through tweets, 140 characters at a time.
Brevity is surely at the heart of good communication, and I hope it is not just my own diminishing attention span that made me wish I could edit this volume to leave its undoubted gems on more obvious show.
In the chapter on guided tours there is a lovely idea from the Tenement Museum in New York about the “script as soap opera”.
I also like, in the store chapter, the idea that purchases at the end of a visit are not just about shopping but are asking the question, “What memory of the museum are you taking home today?”
There are guidelines on how many words to write for an audiotour entry, and on a webpage, but to find and recall them will need patience and Post-it notes.
Indeed, in the final chapter, you find a set of tips that are a pithy and practical guide to good writing. These are the kind of techniques I collect and, if they ring true, try to put into practice.
We would all write better if we stuck to such advice as “leave out the bits readers tend to skip” and “run from buzzwords” – the latter being something that many working in museums love to create.
If we also get our mission and messages clear, we’ll go a long way towards giving visitors the best possible welcome to all museums have to offer.
Rebecca Mileham is an interpretation consultant and writing trainer with TextWorkshop
What is the first thing that greets visitors as they approach your museum: a welcoming “come in” sign, a tempting cafe menu?
Or is it a peevish notice warning that bicycles parked here will be confiscated? (Well-known UK museum, I am looking at you.)
From the first text people see as they arrive to the last as they leave, all words matter. This is the message of Writing for Museums by the associate professor of marketing communication at Columbia College in Chicago, Margot Wallace.
Web text, social-media posts, cafe and shop signs, tour scripts and letters encouraging donations can all serve to support and illustrate important aspects of your museum’s role and purpose.
Informational signage comes under particular scrutiny by Wallace – and so it should. Many museum signs shout, scold and shame, leaving their visitors cowed under the weight of admonition.
But one of the best no-entry signs I have seen perfectly follows this book’s much more positive guidelines. It was at a Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust centre, where a sign on a gate read: “Ducks and staff only.” Short and sweet, it aptly communicates the message that the trust puts wildfowl first.
Gallery text is the one kind of writing outside the remit of this book – but a museum’s authoritative stories are the source of inspiration for writing of all kinds.
As Wallace shows, there is no quarrel between the business of marketing and the communication of a museum’s expertise and character. All words can work towards complementary goals, whether they flow from the learning, marketing, fundraising or commercial departments.
Clear thinking, a clear mission and clear messages are vital. “Every successive page should carry the same DNA,” is how Wallace puts it in her chapter on website writing. For blogging, she gives examples of potential blogposts that could reinforce a museum’s most important characteristics.
The Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina, displayed expertise and wit in a post comparing the masses of two of its heavyweight species, the alpaca and the potbellied pig.
However, Wallace’s thinking was not as evident to me in a different comparison I saw recently, likening the weight of the Lindisfarne Gospels to that of an adult badger. I’d love to understand the reason why.
Wallace endorses the valuable idea that museums can have conversations with visitors – whether through live interpretation or via the myriad ways that words can raise provocative and intriguing questions.
And in the chapter on social media she applauds the Twitter initiative #AskACurator, along with the success of historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson, brought to life through tweets, 140 characters at a time.
Brevity is surely at the heart of good communication, and I hope it is not just my own diminishing attention span that made me wish I could edit this volume to leave its undoubted gems on more obvious show.
In the chapter on guided tours there is a lovely idea from the Tenement Museum in New York about the “script as soap opera”.
I also like, in the store chapter, the idea that purchases at the end of a visit are not just about shopping but are asking the question, “What memory of the museum are you taking home today?”
There are guidelines on how many words to write for an audiotour entry, and on a webpage, but to find and recall them will need patience and Post-it notes.
Indeed, in the final chapter, you find a set of tips that are a pithy and practical guide to good writing. These are the kind of techniques I collect and, if they ring true, try to put into practice.
We would all write better if we stuck to such advice as “leave out the bits readers tend to skip” and “run from buzzwords” – the latter being something that many working in museums love to create.
If we also get our mission and messages clear, we’ll go a long way towards giving visitors the best possible welcome to all museums have to offer.
Rebecca Mileham is an interpretation consultant and writing trainer with TextWorkshop
