Mr. Dressup to Degrassi: 42 Years of Toronto Kids Tv Exhibition

Client
Museum of Toronto

Year
2023

From 1952 to 1994, Toronto was a global player in a golden era of children’s television programming. For over four decades, our city brought together innovative thought leaders, passionate creators and unexpected collaborations – forming a corner of the television industry unlike any other in the world.

This exhibit was created to look like a tv set, each section representing a decade from 1950-1990. Each section has an interactive element to engage viewers, along with information about the tv shows and historical events that took place during each era.

The Plan

We divided the whole space into decades going from 1950-1990. Each section was created to symbolize the set of a popular kids tv show in that era, along with patterns and colours further reinforcing the aesthetics from that era.

Illustrator Progress Work

Decade Boxes

The patterns of each box resembles the aesthetic of the era. Inspiration was taken from fashion, trending toys, carpets, colours associated with the era and tv show sets.

The box on the top is a decade marker that lets a person know which decade they have entered, it is the same design across all sections as an easy to spot guide.

Each decade also has it’s own typeface that further enforces the vibe of the decade, all titles and decade markers are in this typeface, while the rest are in the Myseum brand typeface - Helvetica.

They are gigantic and towering to make a person feel small, like they’re a kid and everything is so big to them