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(November 2009) posted on Fri Oct 16, 2009

The Newseum's signage and graphics recount the history of mass media.

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By Steve Aust

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The Newseum, which opened on Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington D.C. in spring 2008, devotes seven stories and 250,000 sq. ft. to recounting approximately 500 years of the history of journalism and the importance of protecting the First Amendment. Ralph Appelbaum & Assoc. (RAA), NYC, developed the Newseum’s exhibitions. According to Deborah Wolf, RAA’s director of communications, “The exhibits needed to seamlessly integrate with the Polshek Partnership’s architecture to provide a fully immersive visitor experience. News history from centuries ago was brought alive, and real-time news feeds communicate the speed and passion of contemporary journalism. This mass of information had to be carefully organized to uphold Newseum’s brand, identity and aesthetic.”

Kubik (Mississauga, ON, Canada) fabricated more than 3,000 graphics for the Newseum’s exhibition space. According to Sam Kohn, Kubik’s president, the program includes porcelain-enamel panels, layered-glass graphics, and inkjet-printed graphics mounted to Dibond® composite-material panels, among others. Kohn said, “The integration of the signage and graphics into the base construction required us to provide slugs for the drywall contract to fit them into the voids. These dimensions required very tight tolerances.”

A 40 x 22-ft., 6mm-pixel-pitch, Barco LED screen features live camera feeds of news events and also display ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos, a news-discussion program that’s filmed at Newseum. Newseum’s Bud O’Connor said, “Two factors drove the screen’s dimensions: wanting the right pixel pitch, and 1920 x 1080, native-HD resolution. We didn’t want to create unique tiles, so we made the screen slightly larger than HD [1944 x 1080]. We can use native resolution or slightly stretch images. Nearly all content within the Newseum is accessible to the screen.”