Case Study · Events & Experiential · 2017–2018
Retail as Research.
The Exhibition That Rewrote the Playbook.
The Portland Art Museum's "Animating Life" LAIKA exhibition became the museum's most successful install in a decade. The retail space was the proof of concept for the whole consumer products programme, and a way to turn a captive audience into a source of data.
#1
Most successful PAM install in a decade
2
Audience types mapped and served simultaneously
100%
Products curated from exhibition content
Live
R&D data fed directly into licensing programme
The Brief
The role extended well beyond the gift shop. Working alongside the exhibition design team and Dan Pascall, I was involved in three interconnected areas: helping design and build the exhibition itself, creating and installing the AV content throughout the exhibit, and designing and stocking the retail space at the end of the tour.
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The AV work was central to the exhibition: moving image, behind-the-scenes sequences and production footage that gave context to the objects on display. Visitors came away understanding how the puppets and props were made and how much care went into them. The retail space had to honour that.
The retail challenge was twofold: LAIKA fans who had specifically come to see the exhibition, and general museum visitors who had no prior relationship with the studio or the films. Both audiences had just walked through rooms containing the actual physical sets, puppets, and props. The retail space needed to feel like the last room of the exhibition.
Image — The Exhibition
Portland Art Museum, Animating Life: The Art, Science, and Wonder of LAIKA. The museum's most successful exhibition install in a decade.
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Exhibition-Led Curation
Every product in the gift shop was selected or developed in direct relationship to something in the exhibition itself. The curatorial principle was simple: if it doesn't connect directly to something the visitor just experienced, it doesn't belong in the space.
The product mix was built from three data sources layered together:
SDCC sales data: which product categories carried real emotional weight with LAIKA fans.
Museum gift shop best-seller data: what general museum visitors reliably bought, whatever the exhibition.
Exhibition content itself: which moments in the tour drew the strongest response, and so where to focus the most distinctive products.
The Broader Audience
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The PAM audience was not exclusively LAIKA fans. Many were general museum-goers who loved animation, art, craft or simply the museum. Products about making and building, such as process kits, materials and instruction-led items, tested well with them. The exhibition had shown them what extraordinary craft looked like. They wanted to try something themselves.
Image — testing the market
What This demonstrates
Retail design and curation at the intersection of brand, exhibition, and commercial objectives
Multi-audience strategy, designing for existing fans and new audiences at the same time
Data synthesis across multiple sources to make product decisions
Managing the interface between a production studio's creative standards and an institution's commercial requirements
Using events as structured market research rather than one-off activations