top of page

Search


Backstory exhibit makes national news
The Associated Press featured Alabama Justice: The Cases and Faces That Changed a Nation in its round-up of state news. Click here for...

Phillip Ratliff
Dec 3, 20191 min read
Â
Â
Â


Outdoor signage the Backstory way
It's a bang-for-your-buck issue. If your public ignores -- or is flat-out confused by -- your outdoor signage, you've essentially tossed...

Phillip Ratliff
Dec 3, 20192 min read
Â
Â
Â


Why you should choose custom exhibits over off-the-shelf
Whether they come to your gallery space from off the shelf or through a custom process, interactive exhibits aren't complicated in their...

Phillip Ratliff
Nov 5, 20192 min read
Â
Â
Â


STEM exhibits by the Backstory team
Building an interactive is building an interactive. That's true, whether the subject matter is the arguments behind a landmark Supreme...

Phillip Ratliff
Nov 4, 20192 min read
Â
Â
Â


Exhibit Brief: Interpreting a city's historic train station
Launching an exhibit is a process. It involves inventorying artifacts and sourcing images, researching oral and written sources and...

Phillip Ratliff
Oct 31, 20191 min read
Â
Â
Â


Translating a book on local history into an exhibit
The media are vastly different, but independently published history books are solid starting points for exhibit content creators. Images...

Phillip Ratliff
Oct 21, 20192 min read
Â
Â
Â


You don’t know who you’re missing
We live in bubbles — social media bubbles, church bubbles, school bubbles, work bubbles. These social enclosures reinforce our sense of...

Phillip Ratliff
Oct 21, 20192 min read
Â
Â
Â


The tangible benefits of bottom-up exhibit design
Organizations that mount exhibits working with companies whose design approach is empirical and organic see benefits. Here are four of...

Phillip Ratliff
Oct 20, 20191 min read
Â
Â
Â


Betting on the wrong exhibit design firm can cost you
You’ve secured the funding, assembled a team of in-house staff, and now you’re ready to build an exhibit. Don’t make your next step a...

Phillip Ratliff
Oct 18, 20192 min read
Â
Â


The Joy of the Joy of Painting
Over the past 30-plus years, Bob Ross’s meditative DIY series, The Joy of Painting, has amassed a following of hippies and hipsters....
Phillip Ratliff, Backstory Educational Media
May 23, 20175 min read
Â
Â
Â


Making Chronic Disease Management Personal
Chronic disease management is a big problem, no matter what segment of society you're looking at, but it hits medically underserved areas...
Phillip Ratliff, Backstory Educational Media
May 23, 20172 min read
Â
Â
Â


Ruffner looks to Backstory Ed to help tell their story
Ruffner Mountain Nature Coalition saved a mountain and built one of the largest urban nature preserves in the United States. Today,...

Phillip Ratliff
May 20, 20171 min read
Â
Â
Â


Engineering a Continuing Pharmacy Education Machine
When the Georgia Pharmacy Association approached me in the fall of 2016 about running their continuing pharmacy education, I admit it was...
Phillip Ratliff, Backstory Educational Media
Dec 18, 20163 min read
Â
Â
Â


Retro/Upside Down
To viewers steeped in 1980s popular film, the world of Stranger Things will seem eerily familiar. When we meet series’ four tween...

Phillip Ratliff
Dec 15, 20164 min read
Â
Â
Â


When you believe in the project, sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith
This month, B Metro published my short article on the the Birmingham Industrial Heritage Trail project. It was an insider's view of this...
Phillip Ratliff, Backstory Educational Media
Dec 15, 20162 min read
Â
Â
Â
bottom of page