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NMA / Mr Squiggle and Friends
Client
National Museum of Australia
Timeline
12 Months
Date
Jul 18, 2025
Exhibitions
Mr Squiggle and Friends: The creative world of Norman Hetherington, at the National Museum of Australia, offers a playful and insightful look into the wonderful world of puppetry, cartooning and art, based on Norman Hetherington's iconic character and show “Mr Squiggle”.
The Opportunity
Featuring more than 800 objects, including puppets, scripts, costumes and sets, Mr Squiggle and Friends aims to give audiences the chance to experience and celebrate the stories and objects that are significant to the world Norman Hetherington created.
The first episode of the show “Mr Squiggle” aired on 1 July 1959 and focused on the titular character, with his pencil nose and an ability to transform random lines into drawings that entertained and inspired audiences until 1999.
Through this exhibition, curators hope to inspire a sense of nostalgia for Australians who grew up with the show, while also sharing its magic with a whole new generation of children.
Artikel’s Nick Williams used collaborative and creative problem-solving skills to ensure the seamless transition and delivery of outcomes across all phases, from conceptual to final execution.
The Outcome
For this project, Artikel was engaged from concept design through to the final design phases and was responsible for creating and executing the following outcomes:
All 2D Graphics featured throughout the exhibition
The design of Title Treatment
The Exhibition colour palette, typography and style guide
The digitisation of all large format illustrations from original drawings and “My Squiggle colouring-in books featured throughout the exhibition in the form of wallpapers, large cutout feature graphics and showcases.
The design of story panels and labels.
The signature hand-drawn illustrations act as the key design feature of the exhibition, creating a sense of fun and play throughout the gallery space while highlighting the wider creative world of Hetherington. This feature depended on the hand digitisation of scanned pages from the “Mr Squiggle and friends” colouring books, completed by Artikel to create large-scale vector-based illustrations that allowed high-quality printing to be produced for the space.
Colour played a significant role in the spatial experience and identity of the exhibition, with the final colour scheme drawing from the bright design of the puppets in the collection. The gallery space is structured using distinctly coloured wallpaper that indicates a transition between the exhibition's core themes. The wallpaper treatment, featuring the hand-drawn squiggle motifs, ensures that the visual identity remains cohesive throughout the distinct thematic areas, while providing bursts of colour for a more vibrant environment.
Overall, Artikel’s use of colour in the exhibition space was purposeful and balanced to ensure the space would not overpower or compete with the objects and colourful puppets on display.
This exhibition was designed to provide the museum with an opportunity to tour a selection of objects and showcases from the collection around Australia. To support this, design elements were developed with materiality and functionality in mind, for example, the large 1500mm tall cutout, featuring “Mr Squiggle” and “Rocket” that offers audiences a photo opportunity with the man from the moon.
The Experience
This exhibition is accessible to viewers of all ages, inviting audiences to rediscover childhood memories or be introduced to the magic of Mr Squiggle for the first time.
The content showcases the evolution of Norman Hetherington’s career, from his early years serving in WWII and Cartooning through to later 3D realisations of his work in puppet form.
The show Mr Squiggle and friends was the collective result of this transition from 2D to 3D, with Hetherington’s career transitioning alongside his characters, until in some ways his personality became Mr Squiggle, the man behind the puppet. The objects on display reflect this transition, providing viewers with a “front” and “backstage” view of Norman Hetherington's creative world.
As audiences are guided through his early work, including cartoons and hand-crafted costumes for stage productions, his medium, and the supporting elements of the exhibition, the exhibition transitions from 2D to 3D.
A notable design feature created by Artikel is the ‘puppet house’, which represents Heatherington's creative mind and world, through a large grid-like showcase layout. This feature exhibits a collection of fun, colourful objects, made by hand and often from everyday items, offering a demonstration of the transformative nature of the puppetry medium. These puppets beautifully capture Hetherington’s creative vision, with each artefact captivating viewers and bringing them on the show’s journeys across oceans, medieval lands and circuses.
The designs created by Artikel aim to support the playful and nostalgic effect of the displayed artefacts while enhancing a sense of magic and wonder throughout the exhibition space using illustration and spatial elements.
Conclusion
Drawing crowds from across the country to experience the magic of Mr squiggle that captivated Australian audiences for years, this exhibition celebrates the wonderous creative mind of Norman Hetherington and the puppetry medium.
Artikel design played a critical role in bringing the magical nature of the exhibition content to life. The exhibition atmosphere and experience were designed to excite and engage visitors, using a playful but balanced approach to colour, typography and illustration within each design outcome delivered.
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