Author
John Russick and Jojo Galvan Mora
In just a few months, a quarter of the twenty-first century will be behind us. Much has changed in museums over that time. Some of that change has been brought on by technology and new ways to do our work, both outwardly and behind the scenes. Some has been driven by an incredible push to be more accessible and welcoming to more people. Still more has come from new people in leadership, who have introduced novel approaches to the work and fresh ideas about how to fund operations as the philanthropic landscape shifts. One thing that has not changed significantly, though: we still primarily communicate with people in writing.
We publish blocks of text on our websites, in our brochures and promotional materials, through letters to our members, in our online and in-gallery interactive experiences, and on graphic panels throughout our exhibitions. Despite all the new technology and the push to engage audiences in new ways, we still rely heavily on written communication to invite, inform, inspire, and guide our visitors and supporters. However, the quality of our communication—especially interpretive text in exhibitions—is often lackluster. Despite the fact that it's still the main source of information for our visitors, our exhibition label copy is often overly long, unclear, and uninspiring.
About twenty-five years ago, Brian Peterson, then a curator at the James A. Michener Art Museum near Philadelphia, had the idea to launch an annual competition to see if he couldn't raise the bar on the quality of museum exhibition label writing. Brian's notion was simple. He thought by sharing examples of well-written label copy from a variety of museums across the country, he might inspire more museum curators, exhibition developers, and educators to do better and, in the course of time, elevate the quality of museum exhibition label writing overall.
Like so many start-ups, this initial version of the competition wasn't without flaws, and died in 2004. Promotion of the competition was not widespread, the judges were not always diverse, and the criteria for judging excellence were not always clear. When Emily Nordstrom and I rebooted the competition in 2008, we tried to address all of these concerns. With advice from Brian, sponsorship and promotion from AAM, a new automated submission process with diverse judges, and partnerships with some of AAM's former professional networks, we created a new system that recognized and celebrated some important lessons in excellent exhibition label writing.
Every year, some of the most talented and experienced exhibition label copy writers and editors attended the display of winning entries. Here, recognized writer and juror, Eileen Campbell (left) joins label copy winners Toni Wynn (middle) and Beverly Serrell (right). Serrell's essential museum book, Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach, includes competition winners. Image by John Russick.
Lessons from the Winners
As the new version of the competition matured, we noticed that a set of standards for winning entries began to organically emerge. Typically, the best labels shared the "3 Cs" of quality label copy. They were clear, concise, and captivating. The label copy that the judges were drawn to typically shared all three of these qualities.
Clear labels put complex ideas into digestible chunks and effectively (not gratuitously) employed well-chosen adjectives and adverbs to help readers understand and relate to complex or unfamiliar ideas or stories.
Concise labels were often composed by writing and editing teams that empathized with visitors, who are typically asked to read significant amounts of exhibition label copy while standing and walking through large gallery spaces. Many of the best entries made their points quickly.
Captivating labels made every sentence count, as if each line had the sole purpose of inspiring the visitor to read the next one. They had the creativity and vitality of classic newspaper writing, or the snappy language of engaging movie dialogue, or the qualities of effective short form writing, such as a well-composed tweet.
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