Exhibit Graphics System
Wild Beauty:
The Botanical Art of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Florilegium
Client
Bell Museum
Year
2026
Design and Visual Direction
Ben Krueger
Exhibitions and Gallery Programs Manager
Ethan Kruszka
The Project
Wild Beauty shows the complete Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden Florilegium for the first time. It includes 111 watercolors by 43 artists of the Minnesota School of Botanical Art, created between 2011 and 2025. The exhibition runs September 26, 2026 through January 3, 2027.
The Challenge
The exhibition needed a cohesive graphic system across more than 30 distinct pieces: panels, labels, a map, interactive stations, and monitor graphics. The work had to read as elegant but approachable, serve a broad audience, and survive a production schedule with a hard print deadline.
A Visual System
The entrance wall spells out the exhibition title across ten framed letters in two sizes. Each letter has hand-masked botanical artwork woven in front of and behind the letterform.
The map introduces a habitat-based palette system in which Woodland, Wetland, and Meadow each have their own color. Visitors experience the artworks within their grouped environments and are reminded through the system’s labels,
Interaction
Find the Relatives: Game Board
An interactive botanical key on a 46" × 94" board. Visitors slide plant tiles along a track by leaf arrangement, petal number, and flower symmetry to discover each plant’s family.
How to Draw a Showy Lady’s Slipper
Instructional table-top stand inviting all ages to learn how to draw the Minnesota state flower.
Make a Garden: Collage Activity
Visitors can create their own garden through collaborative collages built from artwork by a local artist.
