This one should prove interesting to follow. The Washington Post reports (Link) of a new interactive museum web site being developed for the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum by design firm Method … with MIT’s John Maeda (Simplicity weblog) keeping a close eye on the project. There’s some interesting information in the piece, including mention of a Guggenheim Virtual Museum that never got beyond prototype but sounds intriguing.

However, my favorite part of the article is this:

More funding will be needed, but Maeda points out that interactive technology has already been invented and can be acquired at reasonable cost.

Over recent weeks, Kevin Farnham, Method’s chief executive, lead the museum’s staff through brainstorming sessions. While curators distilled aspirations into key words on Post-it notes, Maeda kept the group from straying into costly bells and whistles.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed over the past few years it’s the increased hiring of interactive/digital/web/etc designers by some of the more elite design firms out there (actually, some have been doing it for the better part of the last decade). But as digital tools become increasingly simple to use, I have to wonder at what point that whole community becomes inbred and real creativity starts coming from the “unwashed” masses.

Just wait til the digital equivalent of David Carson‘s Beach Culture hits the scene. That will be some fun.

{via TP Wire Service}