CASE STUDY
JOVIAN WIND MUSEUM EXHIBITION
Instructor : Dermot MacCormack
Tyler School of Art, Graphic and Interactive Design Program
COMPONENTS
Brand Identity | Motion Graphics | Catalogue Design | Web Design & Development | App Design & PrototypingTL;DR
Jovian Wind is a concept for a museum exhibition that showcases mesmerizing, psychedelic photographs of Jupiter taken by NASA’s spacecraft Juno. 
INTRODUCTION
WHAT’S JOVIAN WIND ABOUT?
Nasa’s solar-powered, unmanned spacecraft, Juno, was launched on August 5th, 2011 and entered orbit around Jupiter on July 4th, 2016. Juno’s mission and main scientific goals center around studying Jupiter’s gravity and magnetic fields, atmospheric dynamics and composition, interior and core structure, and origin and evolution. Juno’s mission is ongoing; the spacecraft is currently orbiting Jupiter and the science operations are projected to end in July of 2021.The “Jovian Wind” art exhibit showcases grandiose, larger-than-life scale reproductions of some of the most magnificent images released by NASA. The images featured in the exhibit were captured by Juno’s scientific instrument, the JunoCam. These particular images have been carefully curated because of their painterly aesthetic and semblance to manmade, abstract artworks. The subject, Jupiter, is almost unidentifiable at first glance because the planet’s atmosphere fills the images with vibrant undulating color, picturesque cloudscapes, mesmerizing texture, and psychedelic swirls. For the first time, mankind is able to peer below the dense clouds and unlock the secrets of our solar system’s gas giant, Jupiter, and in the process, maybe even uncover the mysteries of the origin of our entire solar system. Experience Jupiter like never before when you visit the “Jovian Wind” exhibit this fall at the Marius Museum.
AESTHETIC DECISIONS
In my branding I wanted to use black and white as to not distract from the beautiful but busy imagery of Jupiter. I also wanted to embrace and show off this bold imagery as much as possible and that’s why on the website and museum catalogue I chose to make the imagery large, by making full bleed folios and stretching images across the full width of the screen.I let the incredibly beautiful images of Jupiter drive the entire project. I was very interested in taking the static Jupiter imagery and making it my own by digitally altering it. In my promotional animation used warping effects to make it appear to move. While making my catalogue, I altered the images again to make them stereoscopic (3D) to connect back to the psychedelic nature of the imagery.
I chose the the typefaces Europa and Kepler as a sort of tongue-in-cheek typography joke because both of their names have to do with outer space or Jupiter. Aesthetically, I think they work well together because they’re simplicity makes them blend in. I also enjoy the contrast between the geometric sans-serif Europa and modern serif Kepler.
I came up with the name of the exhibition because in Roman mythology Jovian means “of or like the god Jove (or Jupiter)” and because the Jupiter images show the planet’s gaseous, windy atmosphere. I came up with the name for the Marius Museum because of the German astronomer Simon Marius who observed and studied Jupiter and its largest moons.
I came up with the concept for the “Jovian Wind” logo while looking at photographs of Jupiter. I wanted to take what I was seeing and geometrically reduce it to a minimal form. I carried this same sort of mindset to the design of the Marius Museum’s logo where I reduced the initials MM down to simple, continuous lines.
I came up with the concept for the “Jovian Wind” logo while looking at photographs of Jupiter. I wanted to take what I was seeing and geometrically reduce it to a minimal form. I carried this same sort of mindset to the design of the Marius Museum’s logo where I reduced the initials MM down to simple, continuous lines.
PROMOTIONAL ANIMATION
For the promotional animation, my goal was to alter the static images that Juno captured of Jupiter by making them appear to move. In After Effects I warped the still images and made them move using the liquify effect and keyframes. There is a significance in my choice of audio, which consists of a mix of Tangerine Dream’s song “Phaedra” and Plasma Sounds that Juno captured during its fourth orbit around Jupiter.CATALOGUE
For the catalogue, I made a loose folio of the ten images that would be featured in the Jovian Wind exhibit. Again, I was interested in altering the still images of Jupiter. This time, however, instead of making the images move, I attempted to make them appear three dimensional. I created an illusion of depth by overlaying two similar but not identical images of Jupiter in Photoshop, adjusting the RGB channels, and shifting the placement of the images. This created a stereoscopic, three dimensional effect that makes the images push forward and recede back on the page. The folio is enclosed in a black chipboard box. Also included is a set of directions and stereoscopic lenses.
POSTER ADVERTISEMENT
BRAND COLLATERAL
WEB DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
The Jovian Wind website contains an about page with information about the exhibition and the Juno mission, a gallery which features the ten images from the exhibit alongside their descriptions, a visit page which contains contact information, hours of operation, ticket pricing, etc., a shop page which contains mockups of some of the merchandise that would be available for purchase online or at the exhibit, and an app page which gives information about the Jovi-Pro app and download buttons. This is a functional website, I used Wordpress with a divi plugin to build it.
APP DESIGN & PROTOTYPING
One interesting thing about the Juno mission is that NASA doesn’t have employees on staff processing the raw images of Jupiter. Instead, they post the raw image files online and rely on “citizen scientists”-normal people- to process the images. Because of this, I came up with a concept for an app prototype titled “Jovi-Pro : JunoCam Image Processing”. Museum goers could download the app to access a gallery of raw images of Jupiter. Using the Jovi-Pro editor they could process the raw images and share or save them. Selected images would then be shown on an LCD screen or projected in an area of the exhibition space. This would give patrons a chance to participate and become “citizen scientists” and see their work displayed in a gallery.
