Project Purpose
Legacy Flight Museum has been preserving and showcasing the history aviation since 2006. It has become a popular attraction in Rexburg bringing in youth groups, families and tour groups of all sizes. The museum has grown in popularity over the years. I began aiding Legacy Flight Museum by helping them come up with ideas for a gift shop and implementing them. The funds from the gift shop would go towards many events such as biannual airshows, summer pancake breakfasts and many other popular events hosted by Legacy Flight Museum. People have voiced a desire to have something to take home with them. The museum started with basic t-shirt and hat designs created in 2006 since then they have not been updated. The designs are outdated and no longer appeal to those who come to the museum. With that understanding, I was able to create items for the gift shop.
Challenges
The challenges that I encountered with creating a popular gift shop was budget. The budget was very small since the money is needed for large events. The second challenge I encountered was the process of getting an idea or event approved. In order to come up with a design or continue on with an idea it had to be approved by more than three people which slowed the process of creating and designing t-shirts, keychains, and updating brochures. The third challenge I encountered was meeting with the marketing director of Legacy Flight Museum. I would be in contact with him throughout the week and we would agree on a meeting time. Upon arrival at the museum, he would either have his hands tied fixing a plane or be doing an hour flight in which I would have to wait till he was done to discuss what the next steps would be.
Process
The project process began with a meeting every Saturday at Legacy Flight Museum. During the meeting the marketing director and I would discuss a new idea or create a new design from ideas we gathered throughout the week. After that meeting I would email Kettle Embroidery and communicate with them about design, cost and quantity. Once the basic information was gathered a proposal had to be presented to the City of Rexburg. The city would then agree or disagree with the design and the emailing to Kettle Embroidery would continue until the final design was created and printed.
Experience
My experience at Legacy Flight Museum was very exciting. I have a fascination for planes so in the process of helping them with their needs I was able to grow my knowledge in something the museum and I are very passionate about. I got to meet many volunteers at the museum who were very fun to interact with. I also learned how to professional when meeting with the city to propose ideas.
Takeaways
I learned many things that I will take into my future career. The first lesson I learned was patience. It was a real experience that affected more than one person. I had to understand that I cannot always have an answer immediately. The second lesson I learned is that marketing before advanced technology is very different. The marketing director and I had very different ideas on how to market such as an article in the newspaper and a short clip on the news compared to my idea of updating and maintaining the Facebook page impacted our progression of bringing people to the museum. I learned how to efficiently communicate in many forms and use a budget wisely. Lastly, I learned many design skills and used many different software’s to create sticker, keychains and t-shirts. I was able to communicate efficiently with many different parties and worked through many scenarios to resolve issues such as minimum quantity orders that we were unaware of until it became time to place the order.
