“Creating Camelot: The Photography of Jacques Lowe,” showcases intimate and iconic images of President John F. Kennedy and his family taken by Kennedy’s personal photographer.
“Creating Camelot: The Photography of Jacques Lowe” features more than 70 photographs and contact sheets. The photos document Kennedy’s rise to power, from his 1958 Senate re-election campaign to the White House. The exhibit also explores how Lowe’s images of the Kennedys were used in the media.
Lowe’s original negatives, which were stored in a World Trade Center bank vault, were lost during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The images in this exhibit have been digitally restored and reproduced by the Newseum from Lowe’s original work prints and contact sheets, on exclusive loan from the photographer’s estate.
Creating Camelot has been redesigned and adapted as a traveling exhibition that is currently in the United States. It has been featured at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia as well as the Durham Museum in Omaha.
Press Quotes:
“Important pictures that might have been lost to history have, in a sense, been pulled from the ashes.”
— Time.com
“The most amazingly intimate photographs of a president ever taken.”
— The New York Times
Responsibilities include: concept design, modeling, graphic design, exhibition design (in-house and traveling exhibit design), promotional graphic design and fabrication drawings.
Artifact case: Displayed here are two of Jacque Lowe's cameras; a 35mm Nikon and his medium format Hasselblad. Also displayed is a Christmas card using a photograph taken by Lowe, which can also be found on the contact sheet that is also on display.
Creating Camelot Photo Booth skin design for special events.
Way finding design: Design for exhibition way finding. A die-cut pattern is used in this design to allow lighting to filter through the rear of the plexiglass that the graphic is mounted to.
Promotional window graphic designed for the Creating Camelot exhibit.
Promotional poster designed for the Creating Camelot exhibit.
Promotional window graphic designed for the Creating Camelot exhibit.
This is a rough 3D walk-through of the Creating Camelot exhibition space layout to show the intended flow of exhibition content for patrons.
Logo: Inspired by the story of the Jacques Lowe Kennedy family photographs (that story is explained at the beginning of this project) that were restored from his original negatives, I used a strict grid system of photos as well as transparency to give an essence of traditional photography film to the logo. The swatches used in the exhibit style guide and logo creation, is a sampled color from a signature image of Jackie Kennedy. The image can be seen on the "Jackie, Jackie, Jackie" section of the exhibit. The swatch paired with a modern sans-serif font for the logo, has an elegant feeling reminiscent of the style and persona of Jackie Kennedy.
Space plan for the Creating Camelot exhibit.
Attract Wall: The Attract Wall features the show's identity which was printed on the first and second surface of a tinted plexiglass material. The images in the logo were printed to the second (back of the plexiglass) surface and the text was printed to the first surface (face of the plexiglass) giving an illusion of depth to the Attract Wall graphic. The exhibit's signature image is also seen on the Attract Wall. This is the image that inspired the Creating Camelot color scheme.
Title Wall: Introduction and summation of the exhibit theme.
Bio Wall: Jacques Lowe biography section.
Section 1 and 2: "The First Photo Session" and "At Home In Georgetown."
Section 3: "Kennedy's Early Campaign."
Section 4, 5 and 6: "Kennedy Wins The Nomination," "The Race To Election Day" and "The Inauguration."
Section 7: "Introducing The First Family." This section also contains an interactive touch screen for exploring more than 2 dozen of Jacque Lowe's original contact sheets featuring the Kennedy family.
Section 8: "The Presidency."
Artifact Case: 3D drawing detailing the contents of the artifact case in the exhibit. Featured in the artifact case are two of Jacques Lowe's cameras; a 35mm Nikon and his medium format Hasselblad. Also displayed is a Christmas card using a photograph taken by Lowe, which can also be found on the contact sheet that is also on display.
Section 9: "The Last Photo Shoot."
Section 10: "Jackie, Jackie, Jackie!"
Title Wall: This is the Title Wall section for the Creating Camelot traveling exhibit. All of the exhibit content was formatted to materials that could be transported and installed easily while still maintaining the look and feel of the original Newseum exhibit. Serving as the Newseum liaison for the traveling exhibit, I supplied design teams with exhibit installation guides, style guides, digital files and marketing materials. The Creating Camelot traveling exhibit has been featured at Philadelphia's Constitution Center as well as The Durham Museum in Omaha.
Sample wall layout that includes an AV component to the exhibit. I designed a self contained housing for traveling purposes, that includes all AV components needed to play the Creating Camelot feature film.
Standard Monitor Housing: Rendering of a standardized 3D design created for traveling exhibitions to display AV content.
Standard Monitor Housing: 3D rendering/exploded view, showing all of the components for the self contained AV housing.
This design was detailed and fabricated for production.
Sample wall layout that includes a touch screen component to the exhibit. More than 2 dozen of Jacques Lowe's original contact sheets can be explored in this interactive monitor. I designed a self contained housing for traveling purposes, that includes all AV components needed to operate the interactive touch screen.
Standardized interactive kiosk housing: Rendering of a standardized 3D design created for traveling exhibitions to display an interactive touch screen.
Standardized interactive kiosk housing: ample from the fabrication drawings that were designed for the interactive kiosk housing.
This design was put into fabrication for traveling exhibitions.
Creating Camelot traveling exhibit at Philadelphia's Constitution Center.
One Sheet: Information guide used for marketing the exhibit to venues nationally.