My NMMHP Graphic Design Summer Internship

At the beginning of this summer I got the opportunity to be a part of the National Museum of Mental Health Project, which is an incredible non-profit based on Boston that has created a virtual community around sharing impactful mental health stories of all mediums. They brought me onto the project as a graphic design intern, as their whole project needed a rebrand and website refresh. This was an exciting new risk on my part as I've been developing my graphic design skills and style over the past year, and this job really put those to the test.

An added challenge within the rebranding of this project was NMMHP's upcoming virtual history exhibit they were curating in collaboration with Revolutionary Spaces, a history museum in downtown Boston. I agreed to jump into designing both the branding and web design for the exhibit, within the NMMHP website. This combination of project work and exhibit work proved to be a really fascinating introduction into the world of design for curation. I found that using my graphic design and storytelling skills to tell an entirely new story in a semi-new medium was both challenging and rewarding.

I came into this project without much web design and branding experience beyond my own website and without any idea how to design a virtual history exhibit. I cannot overstate just how much I learned in the three months that I worked together with this incredible teams of NMMHP and Revolutionary Spaces. I am incredibly proud of both the NMMHP website, which is still under construction, and virtual history exhibit about James Otis, Jr. The wonderfully talented and smart team behind these two projects is listed in the exhibition credits section on the exhibit's homepage. From the curatorial team to the professional artists who contributed their work to this story, this exhibit is making an impact in the mental health professional space and I'm proud to be a part of it. I'm likewise proud to have taken on this project amidst my summer of other work, travel and a variety of creative projects. I often found myself wishing there were more hours in the day so I could work even more on this idea, but I'm just as pleased with what we did accomplish.

Getting the opportunity to go to Boston this weekend to celebrate the launch of the exhibit with the team was the cherry on top for this summer of learning! The project website and virtual exhibit are now live and I couldn't be more proud and excited. I have lots more to learn as I loved diving into the world of design for museum curation. 

I'm taken some highlights of my work from the summer and combined it into a few portfolio pages, which you can view below, along with the link to the website and exhibit. Please check them both out and enjoy both the new designs and the impacful story!

NMMHP Homepage: https://www.nmmhproject.org/

"Patriot, Hero, Distracted Person" Exhibit Homepage: https://www.nmmhproject.org/jamesotisjr