Sorry, Harry you are wrong. The Powerhouse Museum has such a manual and
museums around Oz use it as a template. It's called the Powerhouse Museum
guide to label writing. It includes exapmples of different types of labels
ie. introductory down to single object - defines them by type of info., font
sizes, character and word length etc etc and graphics. it's the basis for
all our labels. I used it for the first time as a curator on Absolutely
Mardi  Gras and it was not too painful a process. I think we are all pretty
proud of our labels that we did - thanks to these guidelines.

If anyone wants more info., please contact Jennifer blunder in our Print
Media Department on [log in to unmask] or fax: 61 - 2- 92170434 (please
note. all Sydney phone numbers are now prefixed by a 9 and are 8 digits
long)

Robert Swieca
[log in to unmask]
fax: 61 - 2- 92170441
 ----------
From: daemon
To: Multiple recipients of list MUSEUM-L
Subject: Re: Text Standards Manuals - a reply
Date: Tuesday, July 30, 1996 4:00PM

I have seen this request before on Museum-L and the fact is that no one
seems
to actually HAVE such a manual - even quite large or well-established
museums.
There is a considerable body of research by Bitgood, Shettel and several
others
on the subject and, over the past year, I have spent a considerable amount
of
time looking at labels in various institutions in Canada, USA, Australia and
NZ, and taking photos of the best and worst examples I could find. I have
always been particularly concerned about labels and signage as I have
retinitis
pigmentosa, and have virtually no low-light vision and a visual field of
only
15 degrees in either eye (and I'll bet all you people out there who know me
just thought I was clumsy and dumb!). Also, I'm easily bored.

Among the best examples, in my humble opinion,:

 - the new state history museum in Raleigh NC which uses very attractive
labels,
limited text, clean and attractive fonts and a colour combination of
cranberry
on cream.
 - the backlit amber on black 3 stage labels of the Canadian Museum of
Civilization, some of which have backlit copies of historical paintings
attached
 - excellent outdoor labels and maps at an interesting natural history park
in
Victoria,to which David Demant of Scienceworks took me last November.
Perhaps
one of the blokes from Oz can help me remember the names
 -labels at the wonderful Walters in Baltimore, one of only two art
galleries/museums I've seen where the label writers had a sense of humour!
As
far as I'm concerned,it had precisely the kinds and amount of information I
like in an art museum.

Among the worst,

 - a western Canadian museum and a midwestern US art gallery, (both of which
I
decline to name), where exhibitions were introduced by, in one case, 3 and
in
the other, 5, huge text panels which no one reads - with later labels of the
same quality
 - a NZ museum which used a colour scheme of black on dark royal blue, with
what
appeared to be 12 point Times Roman font.
 - Fort Ticonderoga.

Some colour schemes work very well - dark forest green on pale sand, or dark
blue on pale grey (or the reverse of each). The secret, for people like me
who
are almost legally blind, is good contrast, low glare and simple, but
attractive and readable fonts. Fonts with minimal seriphs seem to appeal to
most folks. I agree with Steve Bitgood and others who say that no label
should
have more than 70 words and 50 is probably better. I like the idea of large
bold letters for the title; a second line with bold smaller titles
containing
a
sentence of text and then a third line or two or three of regular face text
to
give those who want to dive down to a third level of information a bit more.
This gives the visitor a choice of up to 3 levels of info.

Harry Needham
Canadian War Museum