Published January 23, 2025
Drawn to Life
Use your imagination to tell the story you want to hear. In a nutshell, this is the idea behind Cardboard Storyland, a new experience at the museum where visitors can help a cast of colorful characters on their quests by getting creative and building with cardboard and other materials.
This is the third time the museum has hosted a cardboard-themed exhibit, and they are always a family favorite! For this experience, visitors will jump into four different worlds that encourage them to get creative and make the story their own.
And if there’s anyone who understands the exhibit’s creative spirit, it’s Jordan Hillman, one of our gallery interpreters who designed the characters in the exhibit.
With his vibrant, 1990s cartoon-inspired style, Hillman has been part of the local art scene for years, writing and illustrating graphic novels, drawing collections across multiple artistic styles and collaborating with fellow artists in the area.
When approached by our experience team about designing the characters for Cardboard Storyland, Hillman’s design process began with conversations about what settings to feature within the experience.
The team decided on a fantasy realm, a sci-fi universe, an underwater world and a superhero’s city. Once the settings had been chosen, Hillman dove into researching genres, creating mood boards and sketching concept art to start building characters, including a dragon, a dog, an alien and a superhero.
“When we think of stories, we think of characters to help guide us through that journey. So, we were just playing around with two different things,” said Hillman. “We were trying narrow down genres, and we wanted characters that visitors of any age would have fun with.”
Character design is already a complicated process, and Cardboard Storyland added one extra challenge.
Unlike a comic book, where characters appear in multiple scenes and situations, our visitors will only see one visual representation of each character. For Hillman, that meant every detail mattered that much more, including facial expressions, poses, outfits and color schemes.
Hillman also had to be cautious not to give so much detail that it might limit visitors’ interpretation of the stories.
In the end, he struck an ideal balance while also subverting some expectations for these types of characters.
The superhero who saves people all day is incredibly shy and introverted. The deep-sea explorer isn’t a fish or a mermaid, he’s a scuba diving Jack Russel terrier. The dragon and alien aren’t foreboding villains, they’re joyful wanderers who share their skills and passions with their new friends. Hillman also chose non-traditional color pallets for the characters.
Haunt wears black and dark purple, not the classic superhero scheme of red, blue and yellow. Asher is drawn in bright, playful colors to match his friendlier personality.
These details are just a few ways Hillman encourages creativity through the designs — and the ways visitors can interact with his creations are endless. To see more of Hillman’s work, visit his portfolio .
