Hoorah! The Horrible Histories® Spies exhibition at the Imperial War Museum is open. It's about espionage during WWII: disguises, sabotage, codes, resistance movements, gadgets and camouflage. I designed the wallpaper for much of the exhibition, the stamper trail/map and a slide-and-reveal 'Super Spy' interactive. The work itself was fascinating and although Horrible Histories® is for children, there was no compromise on historical accuracy and fascinating artefacts, so there's plenty to interest adults too. My favourite part to design was the 'Cracking Codes' section about various codes used during the war ... naturally the Enigma machine is the focus. I'm a bit of an Alan Turing fan so it was a delight to research the process of code-breaking and interpret that into something digestible for children. I designed and illustrated the graphics about the Enigma machine, Morse code transmissions and a Bletchley Park 'Bombe' machine ... very satisfying. The stamper trail was fun to design too and it was lovely to see my icons embossed. We had a great time at the opening and the icing on the cake is that you can create and email your very own super spy disguise.
(post by Tanya)