ECLIPSE 2024
On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse passed over ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont.
In keeping with the museum’s mission to inspire and engage everyone in the joy of scientific discovery, the team at ECHO aspired to create an Eclipse 2024 initiative that spanned well beyond the museum’s home in Burlington, encompassing outreach kits, educational materials, and more. In total, our efforts reached an estimated 1,400 on-site visitors as well as 52 libraries, schools, and community centers across Vermont.
The Eclipse 2024 initiative encompasses nearly a year’s worth of designs spanning digital graphics, print materials, merchandise, environmental signage and wayfinding, and more. As Lead Designer, I completed the end-to-end design of all of ECHO’s Eclipse 2024 materials under the guidance of ECHO’s Creative Director.
Project team
Creative Director: Carolyn Crowley
Lead Designer: Ky Chevalier
Content Direction & Project Management: Nina Ridhibhinyo
Awards
Second Place, Educational Publications, Materials and Kits
New England Museum Association Publication Awards, 2025
Awarded to Eclipse 2024 Educational Posters
OUTREACH KITS
In the months leading up to the eclipse, ECHO produced 52 free, custom eclipse education and activity kits for distribution to libraries, schools, and community centers across Vermont. The goal of these kits was to promote safe eclipse viewing, facilitate opportunities for eclipse education, and empower community hubs with materials and information to host their own eclipse-themed events.
I worked closely alongside Nina Ridhibhinyo, ECHO’s Director of Programs and Exhibits, to design and produce the printed components of the kits, including promotional materials, printed activity guides, and the Eclipse 2024 poster series, a portable mini-exhibit printed on six 18” x 24” coroplast signs.
The Eclipse 2024 poster series was awarded second place in the Educational Publications, Materials, and Kits category of the 2025 New England Museum Association Publication Awards.
Shown above: Kit materials in use at Brandon Library (Brandon, VT), Mary Hogan School (Middlebury, VT) and Middlebury Union High School (Middlebury, VT), via Instagram.
POP-UP EXHIBIT
Following the successful distribution of the outreach kits, I worked with Nina to adapt the portable posters into a one-wall pop-up exhibit at the entrance to ECHO’s Special Exhibit Gallery. The exhibit version of this experience incorporated custom environmental graphics as well as minor adjustments to the content and size of the displays to optimize it for an in-house audience at ECHO.
A version of the pop-up exhibit was also displayed at the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, Vermont leading up to the eclipse.
merchandise
Many of my early Eclipse 2024 designs featured complex gradients and subtle texture. When it came time to design the gift shop merchandise, however, I faced a challenge: unlike the screen-first and digital print graphics I’d been working on previously, our merchandise was constrained by the natural limitations of screen printing, embroidery, and hard enamel. My much-used freeform gradient and raster clouds were off the table.
Instead, I opted to lean into the texture of the available materials. Taking the the eclipse timeline featured on the last poster of the exhibit series, I scaled the design back into a set of vector silhouettes aimed at capturing the most important visual hallmarks of each phase. I then applied these silhouettes as negative space in each item’s design, allowing holographic sticker paper, brushed nickel, or glow-in-the-dark embroidery floss to show through. A screen printed tee and hoodie rounded out ECHO’s merchandise selection, each featuring a playful incorporation of the timeline silhouettes.
Eclipse 2024 Event
ECHO’s Eclipse 2024 initiative culminated in a viewing event at the museum and two waterfront viewing sites on Monday, April 8. In total, an estimated 1,400 community members interacted with ECHO Educators or joined in the Eclipse 2024 celebrations at the museum.
In addition to creating graphics and writing copy for digital marketing ahead of the event, I designed custom eclipse glasses, wayfinding signage, visitor guides, volunteer packets, and even vinyl decals for a giant pair of eclipse glasses crafted by Elliott Katz, ECHO’s Senior Exhibits Designer. My work carried the Eclipse 2024 brand throughout the event, from outside the front doors through indoor educational stations—where volunteers used outreach kit materials to lead activities—and out onto the waterfront, where visitors looked skyward while sporting ECHO merchandise and custom glasses.
