Chasing down a dream
Dan Goods is the director of The Studio at NASA JPL. His work as a visual strategist connects the public with NASA'S discoveries and helps scientists and engineers imagine the future.
I aspired to work with Dan after hearing him speak at an Emerging Arts Leaders event in North Hollywood. I had no idea how I would do it, but I told myself I'd figure something out. Ultimately, I e-mailed him. I explained how I had discovered him, how deeply his talk had impacted me, and asked if he had any internship opportunities available. Soon after, he invited me to work with him on something called The Museum of Awe!
Finding awe in
a grain of sand
If a grain of sand represented an entire galaxy, it would take six rooms full of sand to hold all the galaxies in the known universe. Let one of those grains represent our Milky Way Galaxy and imagine drilling a tiny hole into it. Inside that tiny hole is our solar system along with the thousands and thousands of exoplanets NASA has found. Dan Goods found a way to drill a hole into a grain of sand and it became one of the central experiences in the first Museum of Awe.
So what is the Museum of Awe? The MoA is a collection of experiences that will pop up in cities around the world. The goal of the museum is to remind people of the gift and privilege of being alive.
I was never asked to design a logo for the museum but after interning with Dan Goods, creating a mark felt like the most natural expression of our time together. So I delved into the creative process and emerged with this symbol. It is still just a concept, but has been an important piece of my MoA experience all the same.
View the full logo concept
Presenting the grains of sand
As a gift to influencers and potential investors, Dan wanted to present them each with their own hole in a grain of sand. After an initial brief, I designed a simple label and presentation for the vials. I assembled 30 in total and we placed a single grain of sand into each one. The vials were handed out at a private showing of the MoA. One was used in a talk David Delgado gave at a conference called the Art & Science of Awe. You can see it in the video below at the 16:30 mark.
