Sound+Vision: Delivering a Permanent Museum Gallery

Bradford’s National Science and Media Museum has reopened with Sound+Vision — a £6 million gallery transformation delivered ahead of the city’s 2025 UK City of Culture celebrations.

The new permanent gallery celebratThe reopening of Sound+Vision at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford marked a major moment for the institution - a £6m transformation of its permanent galleries ahead of Bradford’s year as UK City of Culture 2025.

Designed to remain in place for decades, the gallery brings together sound, image and interaction at scale. Behind the scenes, that ambition placed equally demanding requirements on materials, production and installation.es the museum’s world-class sound and moving image collections, creating a vibrant visitor experience designed to last a generation.

Unlike many museum projects, Sound+Vision was conceived as a permanent gallery, with a design life of 25 years or more. That single factor shaped almost every decision around graphics and signage.

Materials had to withstand prolonged exposure to light, heavy visitor footfall and routine cleaning. Colour consistency needed to be maintained across a wide range of substrates, ensuring the gallery would age evenly rather than showing patchwork wear over time. These were not short-term aesthetic choices, but long-term performance decisions

The project required the delivery of more than 700 bespoke graphic elements, including:

• Wall and large-scale environmental graphics
• Object labels and interpretation
• Wayfinding and orientation elements
• Floor graphics and integrated AV surfaces

All of this took place within a listed building, alongside a live, multi-disciplinary fit-out programme involving designers, contractors and AV specialists working in parallel.

In this context, coordination and sequencing were as important as production quality. Graphics installation needed to integrate precisely with other trades, without introducing risk to the building fabric or the collection.

One of the defining challenges of Sound+Vision was the range of materials involved. Graphics were produced across multiple substrates, each selected for a specific functional or aesthetic reason.

To ensure consistency, extensive colour testing and prototyping were carried out in advance. This allowed finishes to be evaluated under gallery lighting and across adjacent materials, reducing the risk of visible variation once installed at scale.

This approach ensured that, despite the complexity of the build, the gallery reads as a cohesive whole rather than a collection of individual components.

Sustainability was a core consideration throughout the project, aligned with the museum’s commitment to achieving net zero by 2033.

Material choices included recyclable and recycled substrates where appropriate, alongside responsible production and packaging processes. Logistics and installation were planned to minimise waste and unnecessary transport, with carbon measurement used to inform decision-making.

Crucially, sustainability was treated as a practical delivery requirement, not a surface-level claim - ensuring environmental responsibility did not compromise durability or performance.

Sound+Vision reopened to the public on schedule in January 2025. More than 700 bespoke graphics were delivered and installed without impact on the listed building, creating a durable, accessible and visually unified gallery environment.

For the museum, the result is a permanent space designed to support evolving interpretation while standing up to decades of public use - a significant long-term investment delivered with confidence.

This article provides a summary, but you can explore the full project detail in our downloadable case study.