Funnily enough, shortly after completing my Strong Museum Wayfinding Project (see portfolio), I landed a internship at The Strong National Museum of Play. Growing up in Rochester, I had been to The Strong many times as a child, so actually working there was an incredible opportunity and even better experience. I worked alongside the current graphic designer and the Exhibits Team under the VP and Senior VP of Exhibits.

Upon starting the internship, I was given a choice between two major projects:

• A "Coat of Arms" interactive project involving the research for and creation of vector graphics for an interactive, coat-of-arms-building activity at the museum

• A "Fairy Doors" project where I would create a series of motion graphics that would be displayed behind fairy doors that could open and close

I initially leaned towards the Fairy Doors project, but realized that I already was pretty confident in my motion graphics skills. The Coat of Arms project required a lot of cultural research and the development of a cohesive graphical system, both of which are topics that I wanted more experience in, so I chose the Coat of Arms project to work on for the summer.

Project Introduction

My role was to research, choose, and design different individual vector graphics for each of the first 4 categories listed. The "character trait" category did not require designing for, as those icons have already been made by The Strong's current graphic designer, and the implementation of these traits are part of a larger re-branding of the Reading Adventureland area. For context, the 8 character traits are as follows:

• Responsibility

• Determination

• Respect

• Kindness

• Playfulness

• Curiosity

• Courage

• Collaboration

The Coat of Arms Interactive is a planned installation at The Strong as part of their Reading Adventureland renovation project. Guests will approach a physical interface where physical pucks can be placed into 5 slots/categories, and the guests' choices will combine on a screen to create their very own coat of arms. The 5 categories are listed below:

• Shield shape

• Background Pattern

• Surrounding Symbol

• Animal/Creatrure

• Character trait

Process

After receiving feedback on my research and narrowing down the choices, I created some rough sketches of each option and presented those to the team. They wanted the designs to have a bold, cartoony style, so I kept that in mind especially when designing the animals.

We discussed my sketches more, and after making some alterations, I created the graphics in Adobe Illustrator as well as several mockups of what different combinations could look like (the guests would choose the colors, so the graphics themselves are grayscale). While not required, I also added a rough version of the character trait banner and some notes for the future with more ideas and color/type options for the interface.

They were overall pleased with my work and will still need to figure out how everything will be arranged/tweaked on the programming end of it. Once I receive photos of the installation process, I will add them below!

The first stage of the project was cultural research with multiple options for each category. See my research PDF and raw research document on the right for a better look at my research process and depth. Each PDF here was presented to the Exhibits Team as well as the VP and Senior VP of Exhibits.

I also tried to connect some of these options with one of the aforementioned character traits when I thought a connection existed.

Dylan Lipp, 2025