Melanie SpencerAn experienced and passionate project manager with a background in museum exhibitions, events and installations. Always working in an efficient, cost effective way to ensure all projects are delivered on time and on budget. Services include consultancy, project planning and implementation, design development and installation management. Please browse the following pages for information on past projects.

If you have a project you need assistance with please get in touch.

www.melspencer.co.ukmail@melspencer.co.uk+44 (0)7944 344 883

Digital Crystal - Swarovski at the Design Museum (2012) 

Digital Crystal featured 14 pieces commissioned by Swarovski that challenged some of the world’s leading architects and designers to explore the future of memory in the fast developing digital age. Designers including Ron Arad, Paul Cocksedge, Random International and Maarten Baas all contributed to this visually and technically stunning exhibition. As there were only 14 pieces shown in the exhibition, and each with its own unique character, we worked with Carmody Groarke to design a space that would allow them the room to “breathe” so people could contemplate the work and enjoy the audio interviews that accompanied each piece. They achieved this by creating a series of spaces sectioned with a translucent gauze that gave the gallery an ethereal quality which complemented the crystals used throughout the exhibition.

Melanie SpencerExhibitions ContactTouring Events Installations

Christian Louboutin - 20 Years (2012)

This exhibition celebrated Christian Louboutin’s career to date and showcased twenty years of his designs and inspirations. Drawing from Louboutin’s personal archive, the exhibition presented his celebrated designs from the origin of the iconic red sole, through to his latest collections. Working closely with Christian Louboutin and his team, it became clear very quickly that the theatrical and dramatic inspired the majority of his work. We therefore worked with interior designers Household to delve into the mind of Christian Louboutin and create a dramatic exhibition environment that would mirror his personal flair and eccentricity. The centre piece of this exhibition was a “hologram” of Dita von Teese (one of Christians close friends and muses) performing a burlesque. This was the first time this cutting edge technology had ever been featured in a UK Museum and brought an additional element of magic to the exhibition.

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This is Design (2012)

This exhibition was of great significance as it was the first time the Design Museum collection had been put back on display for over 10 years. Working closely with the curator Alex Newson and designers Bibliotheque, we managed to produce a thoughtful and interesting journey through the last 100 years of British design. As many of the items in the collection need to be carefully conserved, the challenge was to ensure the objects all looked good on display together whilst also protecting them from deterioration. A series of glass-topped cases were chosen for the more delicate items, with the modern classics positioned on a series of plinths and tables to allow the visitors to get a closer look. The design was pulled together with a striking graphic scheme printed on gauze and stretched across frames containing neon lights. This gave the whole gallery a pale glow that really brought the exhibits to life.

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Kenneth Grange - Making Britain Modern (2011) 

Kenneth Grange is Britain’s leading product designer, his prolific career spans over 50 years and he is responsible for designing some of the most iconic and familiar products and appliances that shape our daily lives. Kodak cameras, the Intercity 125 train, Kenwood food mixers, Parker pens, and the new London Taxi Cab are just some of his well-known designs. This exhibition was Kenneth Grange’s first UK retrospective and celebrated his work, his design journey and the role he has played in making Britain modern. As this exhibition featured such a broad spectrum of products ranging from a pen to a bus shelter, it was important to feature each item with equal prevalence. The exhibition design was a collaboration between James Irvine and Jasper Morrison who worked together to produce a raked display system that allowed each item to stand alone and also as part of one unified structure. Graphic Thought Facility brought the products to life by photographing each product in context and displaying the images in large format. This gave added character and dimension to the “everyday” objects.

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Wim Crouwel - A Graphic Odyssey (2011) 

Regarded as one of the leading designers of the twentieth century, Wim Crouwel embraced a new modernity to produce typographic designs that captured the essence of the emerging computer age of the early 1960s. This exhibition, spanning over 60 years, covered Crouwel’s rigorous design approach and key moments in his career including his work for ‘Total Design’, the identity for the Stedelijk Museum, his iconic posters, print, typography and lesser known exhibition design. The exhibition also highlighted Crouwel’s innovative use of grid-based layouts and typographic systems to produce consistently striking asymmetric visuals. For this exhibition we wanted to reflect Wim’s celebrated grid layouts so 6A Architects used this as the basis for the display system. As all the work was flat, they produced one huge table system that spanned the gallery and followed the grid principles to show the work. The gallery was painted completely white to evoke a “space-age” feeling and a full-wall scale portrait image of Wim was printed on Silver Tyvek to continue this theme.

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Drawing Fashion (2010) 

The Drawing Fashion exhibition showcased a unique collection of some of the most remarkable fashion illustrations from the 20th and 21st Century. These original illustrations from the collections of Chanel, Dior, Comme des Garcons, Lacroix, McQueen and Viktor & Rolf charted the changing perception of fashion drawing from its origins as an advertising tool through to its establishment as a unique representation of today’s collections. Working closely with architects Carmody Groarke, we developed an elegant and intricate exhibition design that emulated the Japanese Shoji screen to divide the space. The challenge was to create something that had visual impact but did not overshadow the beautiful and sometimes subtle artwork. APFEL complimented the exhibition design with caption text that was applied to the inside of the screens so the words were viewed as shadows, consistent with the Shoji screen style.

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Super Contemporary (2009) 

Super Contemporary was a celebration of design in London, past, present and future. It featured an in-depth timeline chronicling the last 50 years of activity in London, 15 new commissions from some of London’s most revered design talents and a series of maps charting what the city means to its creative minds. Martino Gamper designed the exhibition to reflect the city with hoarding style walls and a street pattern layout. Bibliotheque complimented this design with a bold graphic scheme using bright colours and wooden profile to coordinate with Gamper’s preference for natural materials. It was a great privilege to work on this exhibition with some of London’s most well known and respected designers such as Paul Smith, Zaha Hadid, Wayne Hemingway and Tom Dixon. Working with so many designers simultaneously was often a challenge and coorindating the works to ensure they all sat well side by side was a difficult process. The end result, however, was a great success and provided a fascinating insight into how London has become one of the design capitals of the world.

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Science and Media Touring Exhibitions 

Based at the Science Museum, this role involved managing and developing a portfolio of interactive touring exhibitions including the design, operations and logistics of the tours. Working closely with each venue we tailored every exhibition to suit their space and ensured the content was relevant to their audience. I would then arrange the logistics of transporting the exhibitions to the venues and oversee the installation on site.

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Designed to Win Qatar-Katara Cultural Village, Doha 2013 

Developed to coincide with the London Olympics, Designed to Win is an exhibition that celebrates the relationship between design and sport . Exploring themes such as kit design, the evolution of sporting equipment, the influence of sport in fashion and sporting controversy, the exhibition featured a wide range of exhibits that highlighted the integral role that design plays in all aspects of sport. These included Formula One cars, sailboats, record breaking bikes, rugby wheelchairs and many more. Originally on display in London, Qatar was the first stop of a worldwide tour for Designed to Win. The exhibition was reconfigured to suit the venue and local contractors assigned to recreate the impressive bamboo “tunnel” that gave the exhibition the feel of an Olympic velodrome. Bright fluorescent orange vinyl graphics were applied to give a striking contrast to the dark grey walls.

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Game Changers,Cannes Lions Festival 2013

To mark the 60th Anniversary of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, I joined exhibition designers Kent Lyons to produce a retrospective exhibition celebrating ads of the last six decades that have changed the industry forever. The exhibition was made up of a number of “pods” constructed from raw grey mdf and vibrant blue panels which divided the exhibition into the different themes. The ads were displayed on lightboxes and flat-screen televisions, with an additional projection area so theads could be seen in a large format. The exhibition was only on display for one week during the Festival so our brief was to find a way to deliver a gallery style exhibition to go on display in a trade show venue with a very short installation period. This exhibition is also planned to tour so it had to be demountable and the layout flexible. To meet these requirements we created a modular system of individual panels that were pre-finished off site and were quickly screwed together at the venue. The panels can therefore be reconfigured into different layouts to suit any future venues and the vinyl graphics can remain on the panels as the exhibition tours.

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Clerkenwell Design Week

This involved managing the design, build and installation of a “pop up” exhibition featuring the Designers in Residence from previous years. As the exhibition was in a disused warehouse space we wanted to create a display with a “raw” feel. Farm created a temporary display system using natural timber boards and blocks and Alphabetical studio responded to this with a graphic treatment using laser cut MDF laminate.

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Calvin Klein Dinner - Commonwealth Institute 

As part of a collaboration with John Pawson and the Design Museum, Calvin Klein hosted their annual dinner at the site for the New Design Museum at the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington. This was a huge undertaking as the building had been derelict for over 10 years. They wanted to showcase the Museum’s collection so I worked closely with CK and John Pawson’s studio to design a series of displays featuring some iconic design pieces. I then arranged for the items to be transported and installed at the venue as part of the event.

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Head to Toe - Super Contemporary 

As part of the Super Contemporary exhibition-Ross Phillips designed an interactive piece that allowed people in locations all over London to take images of different parts of their bodies which were then brought together in a “mix and match” at the Design Museum or online. I worked closely with Ross to develop the look of the “pods” and then sourced 6 different locations for them across the city. This involved extensive communication with many different authorities and organizations. I then oversaw the installation and operation of the pods over the run of the exhibition.

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