3D Exhibition Signs For The Dead Sea Scrolls At The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

When the Royal Ontario Museum brought the Dead Sea Scrolls to Toronto, the lettering on the wall had to look older than the building it hung in.

Dead Sea Scrolls foam letters with rust and copper patina above Words that Changed the World, Royal Ontario Museum Toronto.

Cus­tom-fin­ished high-den­si­ty sign foam let­ters anchor the Eng­lish Dead Sea Scrolls title wall above a dimen­sion­al sub­ti­tle and print­ed wallpaper.

Description:

Materials: Foam
Length: More than 8 foot (96") long signs
Thickness (Letter): 3.5"
Mounting Method: Flush mounted
Illumination: Spot Light Lighting
Finish: Faux Rusted Metal Signs
Industry: Exhibit Signs

Art­Signs fab­ri­cat­ed the 3D sig­nage ele­ments for Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World — the ROM’s land­mark exhi­bi­tion in the Garfield West­on Exhi­bi­tion Hall, open from June 27, 2009 to Jan­u­ary 3, 2010. We worked under the super­vi­sion of Domeni­ca Sforza, the ROM’s Lead Exhib­it Design­er for graph­ics, trans­lat­ing her design intent into dimen­sion­al let­ter­ing across the exhibition.

The titles had to read as met­al recov­ered from a Qum­ran cave: heavy, cor­rod­ed, two thou­sand years buried. We had one week to devel­op the fin­ish and one week to pro­duce the job.

The answer was high-den­si­ty sign foam. Let­ters were cut 3.5 inch­es thick — deep enough to throw real shad­ow under gallery spot­lights — then hand-fin­ished with a lay­ered metal­lic pati­na colour-matched to the exhi­bi­tion palette. The fin­ish is cus­tom-applied, but the cor­ro­sion itself is real: gen­uine rust and cop­per verdi­gris, chem­i­cal­ly oxi­dised on the sur­face of the let­ter rather than paint­ed on as an illu­sion. That is why it sur­vives close inspec­tion — vis­i­tors stand a foot away from these let­ters. The result has the appear­ance of exca­vat­ed bronze, while the light­weight foam allows the let­ters to mount direct­ly to the exhi­bi­tion walls.

Our scope cov­ered the bilin­gual Eng­lish and French title walls, the sec­tion head­ers includ­ing Qum­ran and Preser­va­tion, the cutout Hebrew word­ing, and addi­tion­al 1⁄4″ dimen­sion­al let­ter­ing through­out. The 3⁄4″ MDF back­ground pan­els were sup­plied, paint­ed and installed by MCM 2001, the exhibition’s gen­er­al con­trac­tor and mill­work­er, along­side print­ed wall graph­ics by Screen Art and Emer­son Group.

The exhi­bi­tion went on to be recog­nised by the Soci­ety for Expe­ri­en­tial Graph­ic Design (SEGD), whose jurors praised its ​“beau­ti­ful use of mate­ri­als, pro­por­tions, and color.”

What a project like this costs. Muse­um and exhi­bi­tion sig­nage at this lev­el — 3D dimen­sion­al let­ter­ing, a spe­cial­ty hand-applied metal­lic fin­ish, bilin­gual lay­outs, deliv­ered on a two-week sched­ule — typ­i­cal­ly runs $10,000 – $15,000. Art­Signs has built dimen­sion­al, back­lit and exhi­bi­tion sig­nage for Toron­to muse­ums, offices and lob­bies since 1985.

French Dead Sea Scrolls foam lettering with rust and copper patina over printed wallpaper at the ROM in Toronto.

Les Man­u­scrits de la Mer Morte — the French title wall pairs cus­tom rust and aged-cop­per pati­na on high-den­si­ty sign foam with dig­i­tal­ly print­ed typo­graph­ic wallpaper.

Wide view of bilingual Dead Sea Scrolls signs and staggered text panels at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

The instal­la­tion com­bines pati­nat­ed high-den­si­ty sign foam titles with MCM 2001’s beige MDF pan­els and print­ed wall graphics.

Angled close-up of thick Scrolls lettering with turquoise verdigris and rust finishes at the ROM in Toronto.

Let­ters cut 3.5 inch­es thick com­bine gen­uine rust and aged-cop­per oxi­da­tion with strong dimen­sion­al shadow.

Macro view of turquoise verdigris and rust texture on a high-density sign foam letter at the ROM in Toronto.

Close up, the cor­ro­sion is real: metal­lic lay­ers chem­i­cal­ly oxi­dised on the sur­face of the foam let­ter, not painted.

Close-up of Hebrew lettering cut into a beige MDF exhibition panel at the ROM in Toronto.

Hebrew word­ing cut into 3/​4‑inch MDF back­ground pan­els, paint­ed and installed by MCM 2001 for the exhibition.

Cream dimensional Preservation lettering above bilingual text on a burgundy exhibition wall at the ROM in Toronto.

Cream cus­tom-paint­ed high-den­si­ty sign foam let­ters define the Preser­va­tion sec­tion of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition.

Cream Qumran lettering on rock-pattern printed wallpaper at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Dimen­sion­al Qum­ran word­ing in high-den­si­ty sign foam set against dig­i­tal­ly print­ed rock-pat­tern wallpaper.

Low-angle view of cream foam lettering and cast shadows at the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition, ROM Toronto.

A low angle shows the let­ter depth that makes dimen­sion­al sig­nage read under direc­tion­al gallery lighting.