Best practices for developing interpretive panels for trails
This American Trails’ webinar, “Telling a Better Story,” focuses on strategies for captivating your trail audience with provocative, well designed interpretive panels.
Presented by:
** This event has passed **
April 26, 2012
10:30 AM to 11:30 AM (Pacific Time) {more time zones}
Cost (RECORDING):
FREE for membersNote:
Closed Captioning is NOT available for this webinar.
Learning Credits are NOT available for this webinar.
This webinar is free. Would you consider a donation to support this webinar?
Visitors encounter a range of sign media when they arrive at a trailside. Entry signs welcome them; maps orient them; regulatory signs guide them. But it is the experiences on the trail that inspire them, and often, those experiences are made more powerful with wayside exhibits.
Wayside exhibits are low-profile interpretive panels positioned along the trail. Done poorly, these panels only dispense facts, and too many of them at that. Done well, they convey powerful messages that visitors understand. While they increase awareness and build knowledge, they also serve to inspire people, even turning them into trail stewards and advocates.
This American Trails’ webinar, “Telling a Better Story,” focuses on strategies for captivating your trail audience with provocative, well designed interpretive panels. Get practical advice for developing theme-based messages, establishing budgets, selecting images and design elements, understanding how visitors learn, writing interpretive text, and preparing files for production.
Join us for discussions and case studies, and take away valuable tips and techniques to turn ordinary panels into extraordinary experiences.
Jennifer Rigby, Director, The Acorn Group, Inc.
Tustin, CA
Jennifer Rigby is a board member of American Trails and director of The Acorn Group, an award-winning interpretive planning and design firm. For over 25 years she has created interpretive master plans and media for trail systems in a variety of settings: windswept dunes, ancient redwood groves, arid deserts, cypress swamps, and hardwood forests. Regardless of where a project takes her, her focus is on creating meaningful experiences for visitors with a variety of media including wayfinding systems and interpretive panels. See her previous American Trails webinar on interpretation titled “Telling a Better Story: Best practices for developing interpretive panels for trails.”
Jenny’s background includes interpretive master planning; teaching in formal and non-formal institutions, including zoos and aquaria; interpretive writing; exhibit and graphic design; and visitor studies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social ecology, master’s degree in education, and two California teaching credentials. Certified by the National Association for Interpretation as an interpretive planner, Jenny has been working in the field of interpretation since 1982.
Erica Fielder, Owner and artist, Erica Fielder Studio
Erica Fielder developed a unique blend of skills she uses to create interpretive displays for trails and visitor centers. She has an MFA in Visual Art and has taken numerous college courses in natural sciences to inform her 40 years experience as a field interpreter. As an interpreter, she led both cultural and natural history field trips for all ages. Such excursions included California transects from the Pacific to the Sierra Crest, and nature/culture walks through San Francisco’s Financial District, to 20 years as resident naturalist at Jug Handle Nature Center in Caspar, CA. Erica illustrated and co-wrote two books, Ecology for City Kids and City Safaris (Sierra Club), on nature/culture adventures for urban children.
Erica Fielder Studio: Interpretive Panels Start to Finish brings this wealth of experience to planning and designing your interpretive displays and trailside panels. Erica’s displays skillfully convey facts and anchor them through engaging original artwork, and references to memory, sensory and metaphor. Erica is passionate about improving the quality of interpretation everywhere so visitors have rich trail experiences, fall in love with a site, and care about it over time. Erica Fielder Studio has been making displays since 1983.
While we may individually agree (or disagree) in whole or in part with any or all of the participants, the views expressed in these webinars are not necessarily representative of the views of American Trails as an organization or its board and staff. Unless specific situations are noted by presenters, nothing in American Trails webinars should be considered to be interpreted as a standard.
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