Hello!
I’m Rebecca Cole and I produce Creative Exhibits
I work on a wide variety of creative public-facing projects with a particular speciality in zoo exhibits, narrative environments, and educational interactives.
I provide unique insights, expertise, and unlimited enthusiasm to the projects that I am involved in and I relentlessly protect the core design principles throughout.
I believe in the potential of exhibits; to provide exciting experiences and lasting impressions on the guests that interact with them. I make budgets work hard to ensure projects reach their full potential and become a passionate advocate for the projects I am involved in. I believe in ambitious ideas, with achievable delivery.
Expertise
Working alongside clients to develop their own ideas, I get involved in all project stages from initial concept to completion. To understand the core objectives and wider strategies, I like to become a fully involved team member collaborating at all project stages.
Concept Development
I can help you get your project off the ground and can assist you with:
- Creating and developing an initial brief
- Defining your key objectives
When we have created your outline brief, I can produce:
- Exhibit layouts that will help define your project areas and the types of spaces you want and need. Detailed briefs and concepts often develop concurrently.
- Site masterplans will create a coherent plan and development framework for a whole site. They combine your experience elements with your practical requirements. This is where fiction and function come together.
- Feasibility studies for your project identify your opportunities and constraints and define a path to completion.
Design
I am a specialist in whole exhibit design development. Through collaboration I bring together the various requirements of the project stakeholders and develop them into a balanced and coherent design. I produce:
- Detailed design elements, thoroughly researched and fully tested. This may include, detailed scheme design, technical elements, theming, landscape, play and interactive design amongst others.
- Design visuals and presentation documentation.
- Integrated experience, engagement, and narrative plan.
- Planning applications, including design drawings and planning statements as required
I know what input is required at the various stages of development and who to bring in when additional expertise is needed.
Creative Project Management
As a creative hands-on project manager, I am on-site to monitor development and am always available to clarify design detail, ensuring design principles are adhered to throughout.
- On site management of works and programming of individual elements.
- Appointment of contractors and oversight of production.
- Management of the design team and design processes, providing feedback and handling communications.
- Programming and budget control.
I appreciate that project settings are living environments. It is important to adapt to the changing landscapes in which exhibits are set. Sometimes development needs to take place on the ground.
Narrative Environments
I’m a big believer in ‘learning through play’. I produce storylines and ‘wow-factor’ experiences that combine education and entertainment:
- Specialising in the creation of an overall narrative and the application of that to an exhibit space, area, and audience.
- Using experience elements to shape visitor use of a space, to slow people down, speed up a visit, encourage or discourage dwell time, behaviours and movement.
- Linking stories and narrative to create a coherent project and site message.
- Design of individual, high impact pieces, telling specific stories that fit into the overall message.
I understand that engagement elements should never be bolted onto an exhibit, they should be integral to the project development from the outset.
Contact
If you have an idea or a project you’d like to discuss, please get in touch.
I have had the pleasure of working with Rebecca on a number of exciting and complex projects in recent years. Throughout this time, Rebecca’s passion for her work alongside her creative and technical ability is clear. Rebecca is professional and her management skills would be a real asset to any project team. I would wholeheartedly recommend her for future projects and look forward to working with her in the future.
Tom Macklen, Associate Architect, Barton Willmore
Having worked with Rebecca for over three years, on world class zoo exhibits, natural play, interpretation and visitor led immersive experiences, she always demonstrated immense enthusiasm and commitment to ensure the end users benefited from all that she created. On our many visits to other zoos and attractions across Europe, Rebecca was always able to quickly understand what worked and how to realise the benefits of an experience, utilise these features and enhance them in her own work. I call upon Rebecca’s visionary skill set, from time to time, to test ideas, as her natural ability to see how people will use space is crucial to successful place making.
Tom Hedges MRICS, Strategic development director, Eagle One Ltd
(formerly Director of Estates at Bristol Zoological Society)