The Earl Scruggs Center weaves together the life story of Earl Scruggs, legendary master of the five-string banjo, with the music and stories of the Carolina Foothills region where Mr. Scruggs was born and raised. The former Cleveland County courthouse in the center of Shelby, North Carolina has become home to a vibrant community center, lively museum, and performance space. 

The exhibtion design scope encompassed master planning, content outline/ scriptwriting, graphic design, interior design, lighting design, and artifact layout/installation.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, curators at the National Museum of African American History and Culture conceived a dual exhibit concept to occupy the 4,000-square-foot NMAAHC temporary exhibition gallery. With Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History as full partner, the two institutions drew upon extensive collections of political, historic, and cultural artifacts to enrich this moving narrative of promise, struggle, and achievement. 

Howard Hughes Medical Institute is second only to the National Institutes of Health in funding cutting edge medical research. HHMI also had inherited a rich collection of Howard Hughes memoribilia from his estate and was looking for a way to display it in a large event space in its Chevy Chase Maryland headquarters.

The project scope included extensive content research, script development, artifact conservation, custom case designs, graphic design, and lighting design.

The George Washington National Library at Mount Vernon was conceived as Washington's "Presidential Library". As a national center for the study of George Washington's life and presidency the Library is situated on a large campus adjacent to the grounds of the Mount Vernon Estate. 

To identify the Library and guide visitors around the campus facilities, a signage system was designed along with a comprehensive  graphic identification package.

The Fourth of July 2015 marked the historic rededication of Baltimore’s 200 year-old Washington Monument, America’s first monument to George Washington. As part of a $6 million restoration effort, with partner Cortina Productions, a dynamic “virtual tour” of the Monument was created that reveals details of the Monuments design and construction along with an interactive 200-year historical timeline. Visitors who do not choose to climb the 220 steps to the top of the Monument enjoy the spectacular view via a live camera feed integrated into the presentation along with a virtual 360 degree interactive view. This media-rich experience is presented on four large custom-designed touch tables in the Monument’s gallery and on the Mount Vernon Place Conservancy website. In addition to the touch tables, the visitor experience design included all orientation signage, dramatic exterior banners, and the massive 200th anniversary rededication plaque.

National Institutes of Health is the largest sponsor of biomedical research in the nation and NIH scientists and engineers have been and continue to be responsible for landmark achievements in science. To commemorate this work 5 pieces of historic research equipment were chosen for rotating displays around the NIH campus in Bethesda Maryland. Five modules were designed that feature a piece of equipment, a biography of the researcher, the breakthrough significance of the artifact, and an explanation of its basic functionality. The modules can be partially disassembled by removing outrigger panels without opening the case, and rolled to lobbies among the campus labs and administration buildings.

Earth satellites occupy a largely unseen world that most people except rocket scientists know very little about. The National Electronics Museum engaged DF Design to create a new permanent exhibition gallery that brings this amazing technology down to earth to engage, educate, and inspire visitors. The gallery design employs a limited palette of “safety” yellow, gray and unfinished aluminum that immerses one in a dramatic high-tech industrial space containing scale model displays, information graphics, interactive orbit animations, and payload launch video complete with gut-rumbling sound. 

Our client has been delighted by both how their new gallery has inspired rave reviews and the overall museum traffic increase it has produced.

The Spectacular Gems and Jewelry exhibition presents the greatest examples from Marjorie Merriweather Post's collection of gems and jewelry along with important loans of pieces once owned by Post but currently housed in other museum or private collections. The exhibition dramatically displays over 50 examples of the great quality and beauty of gems in the collection, their historical significance, and the evolution of twentieth-century jewelry design from the 1900s through the 1960s. 
DFDesign.Studio was responsible for a visual theme for all Spectacular graphics including invitations, banners, and exhibition graphics.