Dispatches
A FASHIONABLE, LIGHTWEIGHT, REUSABLE Statesville, North Carolina—As one of New York City’s largest and most well-known design schools, the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)—a State University of New York college of art, business, design, and technology—is known for its high-profile public exhibitions. Each year, The Museum at FIT hosts nearly 100,000 visitors, who are both entertained and educated about the art of fashion through innovative exhibitions. Additionally the nine-building campus features several other large exhibition spaces, including FIT’s main-entrance lobby that opens to a highly trafficked midtown Manhattan street as well as a major auditorium. These exhibition areas accommodate any number of displays (including departmental shows, outside conference exhibits, and senior projects). “These exhibitions often require reinventing the wheel each time they are developed, including spending thousands of dollars for materials and systems that will be thrown away,” said Craig Berger, assistant professor and chair of the Visual Presentation and Exhibition Design Department, FIT School of Art and Design. Previously these temporary displays were created with structural fiberboard panel systems, which, according to Berger, were “exceedingly heavy and almost impossible to use for exhibits.” Department staff envisioned a better way to accommodate these temporary exhibits by creating their own reusable display system using heavy-duty-yet-lightweight Gatorfoam® graphic display board by 3A Composites USA (www.GraphicDisplay.com) attached to 8
Sign Builder Illustrated // June 2014
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