The target audience for the exhibit is children ages 3 to 8, together with their parents and teachers. With an emphasis on girls, traditionally under-represented in science and math, the exhibition provides rich, developmentally appropriate learning experiences in math, science and literacy.

Innovative Exhibit Design

Two years in the making, Alice's Wonderland presented several cost and design challenges for Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose. At high-end amusement parks, children are engaged through the use of expensive 3-D props that make up highly immersive environments. Most science museums, on the other hand, often forego fancy environments and focus on practical, hands-on exhibits showcasing scientific phenomena. Alice's Wonderland is a unique blend of both. The Museum wanted to spend most of its dollars on interactive exhibits yet still provide an engaging environment. In other words, they had to create a true wonderland, without breaking the bank.

Instead of generating a host of expensive 3-D props for the environment, Koen Liem, senior exhibit developer at the Museum, took a novel approach, creating primarily 2-D artwork and using techniques such as trompe l'oeil to add depth and bring the exhibit to life. The images throughout the exhibit were created as close to John Tenniel's original 1865 illustrations as possible. Liem applied 2-D designs to doors, walls, floors and other surfaces using materials such as 3M Scotch Print (3M, St. Paul, MN) and iZone custom laminates, from Wilsonart, Temple, TX.

The Hall of Doors, central to the story, is featured in the exhibition as a distorted room, clad entirely in 3M Floorminders graphics. This distorted perspective room would have been very expensive to trim out conventionally, but using a graphics approach it was possible to detail it down to the custom wallpaper design. Likewise, the Tea Party table uses graphics to house the various fluid exhibits. Convection happens in a teakettle and drops fall out of a milk bottle depicted on an iZone custom-designed laminate. Other newer printing technologies, such as 3M StereoActive flip panels and mesh banner printing were also used.

Growing And Shrinking With Ease

Every image throughout the graphics-dependent, 2,500 square foot exhibit was created in Adobe Illustrator. "In my experience, I have never seen a museum exhibit with as much emphasis on 2-D graphics as Alice's Wonderland. Illustrator was key to solving both our design and cost challenges," said Liem.

Illustrator offers a number of advantages for exhibit design. The software allows Liem to design artwork at any size, then scale it up or down as needed. Every graphic, from the 8' x 18' front entry mural down to the peephole graphics in the Hall of Doors were drawn on the computer without a worry about output quality.

Scalability was especially important because many exhibits play off of the idea of shrinking and growing, just as Alice does in the story. Liem was able to re-use the artwork created for the exhibition for brochures, print advertising, a 60' x 12' banner for the portico of the Museum, bookmarks distributed at libraries, t-shirts and other marketing materials.

While Illustrator's advantages for producing illustrations are well known, Liem also found it to be an ideal tool for exhibit design. Illustrator allows Liem to draw most exhibits in full scale. He can also stay in the Illustrator environment, rather than switching back and forth to a CAD program, allowing him to seamlessly integrate graphic elements and signage.
Printouts from the full-scale drawings can often be used directly for exhibit production. For example, complex cabriole legs for some of the exhibits were produced directly from templates created from this type of printout.

Encouraging Exploration

Thanks to innovative yet cost-effective design, curious Museum-goers have unique opportunities to encounter some of the tale"s famous characters in a highly engaging environment. Visitors enter the Museum's Wonderland at the same place Alice's dream adventure begins: at the streamside knoll where she nodded off to sleep in her sister's lap. They may find themselves following the White Rabbitinto the Underground by crawling through the rabbit hole and "falling" through the earth. Once there, children can play with the meanings of words and explore the 'antipodes' with a specially outfitted globe. And, as the story goes, they soon discover they are in the Hall of Doors, filled with any number of surprises. Visitors can create a Mad Tea Party, manipulate time with a crazy clock, explore shadows in a Pool of Tears, and understand animation at Caucus Race. Eventurally they will find themselves on The Queen's Croquet Ground, where the balls don't behave quite like you think they would.
"What's particularly rewarding about Alice's Wonderland is watching children getting excited about our exhibits and their underlying phenomena because it's in the context of a compelling environment," saus Liem. "When children are put into a Wonderland, they start looking for wondrous things."eb