RGI Creative merges storytelling with design, crafting impactful custom displays for corporations, science centers and museums.
NORTH RIDGEVILLE, Ohio — When a local businessman brought his California design company back home to Northeast Ohio and merged it with his father’s fabrication company, the result made kids smile for years. Now, building educational displays is the business of RGI Creative.
At RGI Creative, ideas become reality, telling stories through custom displays for corporations, science centers and museums — not just across the country, but globally.
“They typically have some type of story to tell, whether it’s an educational story, science story, if it’s museum related. If it’s corporate related, usually it’s around products or services,” said Ryan Gerber, the president of RGI Creative.
From different NASA centers and Lubrizol to an eye-catching dinosaur at Cleveland Hopkins airport. RGI’s work is built to stop people in their tracks.
“The fun part that makes it really exciting is that we can take those ideas all the way through to completion,” Gerber said.
On this day, projects for the Cleveland Botanical Gardens and Cleveland Museum of Natural History are in production. A scale model of the historic Mather Steamship is being built to help the Great Lakes Science Center celebrate the ship’s 100th anniversary.
“It’s great to be working locally and engaging with people locally,” Gerber said.
That connection is evident at Discovery Works at the Avon Lake Public Library, a large hands-on learning science center packed with STEM based activities. The reimagined 30-year-old space recently reopened to new attendance records.
“Since opening February 1, we just surpassed 40,000 people coming to visit us here at Discovery Works,” said Shea Alltmont, the communications manager for Avon Lake Public Library. “We’re pretty excited about that and that people are hearing about us and coming to visit.”
And there are more displays to come, designed and crafted by RGI.
“Everything has been overall a lot of enthusiasm,” said Alltmont. “A lot of positive feedback from what people are able to come in here because there’s really something for every age group.”
RGI Creative is embracing emerging new technology to enhance the public’s experience through sensory design.
“Not just through sight or touching the screen,” explains Gerber. “It could be through your sense of smell, how you touch and feel something, how you hear something.”
From building a house to hanging out with a mastodon. Ultimately, it is the how the public interacts with the creations that is the best success.
“They get to see that all the hard work is really paying off and working because those folks are having a good time. It’s great,” said Gerber.
The Great Lakes Science Center’s Mather Centennial Celebration opens May 23. The new exhibit at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens is on track to open before Memorial Day weekend.
