by Pat Friedlander
FIT’s Master of Arts in Exhibition and Experience Design is a full-time, hands-on, three-semester 39-credit program completed in 16 months. Encouraging design experiences not only for exhibitions, but also for spaces such as museums, corporate venues and retail environments, the program is comprehensive, and most coursework is a blend of field and studio work. The curriculum focuses on designing narrative environments rooted in human psychology. Students explore every type of designed experience, including museums, pop-ups and interactive digital spaces, and develop skills in concept development, environmental design, graphics, lighting and model making. Projects are conducted with support from many sources, with students learning to plan and build three-dimensional models, apply typographic solutions to brand identity issues, and incorporate graphic, lighting, interactive and audiovisual elements into small- and large-scale designs.
The coursework includes exhibition and experience design planning, presentations, concept development, audience research, theory, evaluation methods, experiential graphic design, lighting and model making for museums, retail, corporate, nonprofit, and public interior and exterior venues.
What Is the Capstone Event?
The culmination of their studies is a two-part research-based requirement. Students conceive and prove in writing an original, theory-based argument. The development of an independent thesis project and the Capstone Event, where students demonstrate their design, research, writing and critical-thinking skills in a final exhibition design and academic paper, presented to program faculty and an international panel of experts. Experiential design industry professionals, including creative directors, CEOs, exhibit developers, audience specialists, museum curators, writers, researchers, content experts, design educators, recruiters, journalists, events marketers and project managers, participate in a day-long adjudication of final student work. Industry leaders travel to FIT to review theses and provide feedback to the graduates.
And this Capstone Event on Friday, December 9, is what brought industry professionals to 28th and 7th—to New York and the FIT conference center. After lunch, Professor Christina Lyons, Chair of the FIT Graduate Exhibition & Experience Design program, gave the guests guidance, including a scoring rubric. Before the event, attendees were sent descriptions of each student’s projects and their rationales for their creative solutions. Then, beginning at 1pm, attendees had 30-minute increments to visit their preselected student projects. The projects ranged from the emotional well-being of Millennials and Gen Z post-pandemic, climate change and battling waste in exhibitions, the power of sound, and the impact of digital and the multiverse. But, of course, a theme that permeated many of the presentations was the COVID pandemic, which will be a defining moment for these students. And Capstone was wonderfully live this year, after two years of virtual presentations.
Not every visitor could listen to every presentation, but catch-up is possible on the Capstone website.
And Then, We Celebrated with Music, Wine and Awards
A program followed the viewing of the student work; there were awards and a keynote speaker, Joy Bailey Bryant, president of Lord Cultural Resources US. Her address was about inclusion in our experiential spaces, which she broke down into the elements of planning a party, a party where everyone feels welcome and represented.
EDPA’s Role in the FIT program
Significant support for FIT’s program comes from the Experiential Designers and Producers Association (EDPA) in the form of scholarships to help defray education costs, lecturers who share their specialties with the students in classroom settings, and developers of the curriculum in partnership with the FIT experiential design faculty. Since 2004, EDPA’s Foundation has championed the program through its university affiliation team. As of this writing, several students have already received job offers from firms attending the event.
An EDPA Star
A Star Award went to Katina Rigall Zipay, MA, a graduate of the program. Katina has been the creative director at Classic Exhibits for almost seven years, and in 2020, she was named the EDPA designer of the year. Currently, Katina is a member of the EDPA board and a facilitator of the Women in Exhibitions group. In commenting on Katina’s Star Award, Kevin Carty, EVP at Classic Exhibits, wrote, “Tell me something I don’t already know! Katina Rigall Zipay, MA, is a star. [I’m] beyond proud of you for your service-driven heart for the #FITNYC program, among the many other ways you give your time and skills to our great industry.”
Happy to be in person once again and able to network with industry friends, this year’s Capstone Event demonstrated the strength of the industry and the relationships we build.
