What's in a label?

Kia ora.

One of the most important aspects of an exhibition is the labels - these have to be concise, accurate and legible. The choice of font and of font size is as critical as the information that the label displays. Every object in an exhibition will have a label, so what is that label meant to do? The basic facts are a given, such as the title of a work or the object name, the media from which it is made, the name of the maker, the date it was made and who owns it. The last is only relevant if the piece is on loan to your institution. This sort of factual information is contained in what we call an Object Label.

If we want to include a little more about a particular piece - maybe the story behind it's making, or an explanation, then we develop an Extended Object Label, where a sentence or two of description or story allows the museum visitor to understand the relevance of the item to the broader exhibition themes. These are more fun to write, but also immensely more challenging as the sentence or two has to be precise, easy to read and convey the pertinent information in no more than  fifty words, or thereabouts.

There are also Thematic Labels, Segmental Labels and Introductory Labels - more on those next post; time is pressing and  we have hundreds of labels to write.............

ka kite ano!