Museum Design
As exhibit designers, our job is to be storytellers. The experience of going to a well designed museum is not so different from watching a well-made movie. A good museum leads you through its exhibits using all the storyteller’s tricks. Surprise. Suspense. Originality. Empathy for the people (and sometimes critters) you meet along the way. A good museum involves you, pulls you in, makes you think. It makes learning so fun that you never stop to realize that you’re being taught.
For its museum jobs, Côte Blanche Productions employs the best specialists available, such as internationally-renowned muralist Robert Dafford, left.
Professional design and a little imagination can bring out the best in even modestly budgeted exhibits, such as our History Room at Southdown Plantation Museum.
Côte Blanche Productions has been active in museum and exhibit design since 1981. Exhibit text, trail signage, dioramas, orientation videos, interactive exhibits: we’ve done it all, both as overall designer / general contractor and as element-specific subcontractor. Most of our museum work has been in Louisiana, where we’ve helped to tell the story of its historic sites (Louisiana State Capitol Visitors’ Center), ways of life (Jean Lafitte National Park and Preserve Acadian Culture Centers in Eunice, Thibodaux, and Lafayette), industries (Louisiana Cotton Museum), cultures (Chitimacha Indian Reservation Visitors Center), fauna and flora (Tickfaw State Park), folklife (Bayou Lafourche Folklife and Heritage Museum), and grandeur (Southdown Plantation Museum).
Eddie Robinson: Coach, American, Legend
From simple beginnings in Louisiana’s cotton fields, Grambling’s Eddie G. Robinson strived for one dream – to coach football. More →
Houma Terrebone Waterlife Museum
Houma, La., 1999. Exhibit designer and general contractor for half-million dollar permanent exhibit with 60 interactive components. As exhibit designer and general contractor, Cote Blanche Productions’ Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum in | More →
Wedell-Williams Aviation Museum
Patterson, La., 2008. Working for the Louisiana State Museum, we produced the revamped exhibit’s centerpiece three screen film “4-D” accompanied by sound, light, and wind effects. Air Racers chronicles the exploits of | More →
La. State Capitol Visitors Center
Baton Rouge, La., 2005. Working as a subcontractor for Washington DC based exhibit firm Explus, Cote Blanche produced the interactive components, wrote the exhibit text, created walking trail signage and made the visitor center orientation | More →
Jean Lafitte Wetlands Center
Thibodaux, La., 1987. Authored exhibit text. National Park Service. More →
La. State Marine Fisheries Museum
Lafitte, La., 2003. Designed 6 rooms of exhibitry on natural and economic history. Destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. More →
Bayou Lafourche Folklife Museum
Lockport, La., 1995. This small museum, housed in a 1910 bank building, was almost in our backyard — just two miles from where we were living at the time. We designed its permanent exhibit, wrote its master plan & did a folklife | More →
Acadian Culture Center
Lafayette, La., 1990. Authored exhibit text and consulted on design for regional interpretive center. National Park Service. More →
Tickfaw State Park
Tickfaw State Park, La., 1998. Designed 35′ diorama, welcome video, co-authored walking trail signage. More →
Louisiana Cotton Museum
Lake Providence, La.. “The Story of Cotton” orientation video and brochure. More →
National Park Service Prairie Center
Eunice, La., 1985. Authored the exhibit text and consulted on content and design. More →
Chitimacha Reservation
Charenton, La., 1988. Orientation video for tribal welcome center. More →
New Orleans World’s Fair
New Orleans, La., 1984. 20 minute side-bar slide show on bayou life. More →
Audubon Zoo Swamp Exhibit
New Orleans, La., 1983. Produced natural science audio component, later distributed as a children’s record. More →
Southdown Plantation Museum
Houma, La., 1982. Designer, Gen’l Contactor for main permanent history exhibit. The exhibit won a national award. More →