Can a product win the notice and praise of some users, but at the same time keep a low profile to the majority of people who interact with it? Gaylord Archival, a leading manufacturer of preservation solutions for museums and archives, approached Nexus for help with a new project to address the needs of both museum professionals and the patrons they serve. Gaylord wanted to develop an innovative and industry-leading approach to a display case system that addressed frustrating challenges when working with commonly available exhibit showcases.  

 

The challenge: explore ways to successfully serve two distinct user groups with competing needs. Patrons required minimal visual obstruction to view artifacts clearly, while curatorial teams needed safe storage environments with easy access for handling case contents. The new case system would need to balance these demands, while also delivering on other important benefits like affordability, ease of assembly, and system scalability.

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For the duration of the project, Nexus assumed full product design responsibilities, from early concept exploration to design for manufacturing. While work advanced, close communication was maintained with Gaylord's product, sales, and manufacturing teams to ensure that steady progress was serving all stakeholders. 

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The goal, however, of maintaining the project’s pace was periodically threatened by extremely long, pandemic-induced lead times for custom aluminum extrusions, which was a key structural element to the system. With the wait for samples of new extrusion designs extending to many months, a much greater importance was placed on early, "breadboard" prototyping to validate essential design concepts. The design of many essential structural components needed to be tested and revised rapidly so that final versions could be released for tooling.

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Even with the added time pressure, Nexus succeeded in incorporating intuitive mechanical features, including snap-together magnetic interlocks between case panels that improved single-person maintenance access. The interlocks, comprised of a mix of magnets and traditional security screws, are part of a preassembled corner structure to each acrylic panel, which greatly simplifies initial case assembly. All new features were designed with maximum viewability of case contents as a priority. The aluminum elements were thus minimized to the limits of necessary structural and mechanical performance. 

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The balancing acts for both product innovation and project management resulted in the patent-pending AXS display case system. The final product is one that serves the institutions using AXS to display artefacts, as well as the patrons who easily look beyond it, to the wonders within.