Bluecadet

In short

Bluecadet began as Josh Goldblum's freelance name after he left a new-media job at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the name comes from a Modest Mouse song. Founded in 2007 and based in Philadelphia, it now splits its work between physical installations in galleries and lobbies, and websites, apps and AR products, with museums as the main client. It is #1 on our Philadelphia list.

For the Metropolitan Museum of Art it designed the 81st Street learning and play space for children and Chroma, an AR app that restores the original colours of ancient sculpture. The MIT Museum has an installation where visitors write poems with an AI agent. Web work includes redesigns for the Princeton University Art Museum, MCA Chicago and LA's Natural History Museums, and a K-12 learning portal for Atlanta's National Center for Civil and Human Rights built on teacher surveys.

Museums, libraries, universities and corporate brand centres with a story to tell across gallery and screen are who Bluecadet is built for; the Folger Shakespeare Library, NASA and W. L. Gore are other names on the list. Narrative strategy has its own head in the leadership team, and the story is settled before design starts. A company that just needs a fast, inexpensive marketing site will be paying for exhibit-grade storytelling and research it will not use.