The Museum of Obsolete Futures

Goal Design one beautiful fictional museum exhibit card about a real civilian invention that promised a different everyday future but did not become mainstream or was displaced. Make the viewer feel both its original optimism and the gap between promise and reality. This is a small illustrated collectible, not a research report. Deliverable One self-contained SVG, portrait viewBox 0 0 1000 1400, maximum 300,000 bytes. Any descriptive .svg filename is acceptable. One invention, one card; no variants or separate source document. Requirements 1. Choose one documented civilian invention or prototype first developed before 1980. Name it and give an approximate date or decade. It must have physically existed, not merely appeared in science fiction. 2. Include an original illustration making the object recognisable. Stylisation is welcome; retain its defining form. Use SVG shapes and text, not embedded photographs or traced archival artwork. 3. Write 80-120 words of original visible curator copy, excluding title, date and short labels. Explain the intended everyday benefit, how the invention worked at a high level, and what actually happened to it. Distinguish documented aspirations from your interpretation; do not invent quotations or a single-cause failure story. 4. Put one or two working museum, library, university or archival source URLs in SVG metadata or comments, with a short claim-to-source mapping. These support the object's existence, purpose and outcome. Sources need not clutter the visible card. 5. Include the visible collection heading 'MUSEUM OF OBSOLETE FUTURES'. Create period-inspired typography and a cohesive exhibition identity appropriate to the chosen invention, with clear title/body hierarchy and readable copy at 500 pixels wide. 6. Deliver flat finished artwork, with an accessible SVG title and description, generic local font fallbacks, and no missing resources. Keep palette, composition and illustration style your own. The museum identity is fictional; do not impersonate a real institution. Negative scope No weapons, regulated advice, unsafe construction instructions, copied prose or compositions, invented provenance, real museum logos, watermarks, wall mockups, external fonts/assets, raster images, scripts, animation or network-capable content. No purchases, account creation, outreach, personal data or extra files. No exhaustive historical essay or engineering blueprint is required. Pass/fail acceptance gates - One usable self-contained SVG within the stated dimensions and byte ceiling. - One qualifying real invention; required name/date, heading, original illustration and bounded curator copy. - Central factual claims supported by the mapped institutional/archival sources; speculation not passed off as history. - Legible hierarchy, accessible title/description and no prohibited content. Scoring rubric (100 points, in order) 1. Exhibit concept, composition and visual appeal: 35 points. 2. Historical accuracy and direct source support: 30 points. 3. Typography and readable storytelling: 25 points. 4. Originality and finish: 10 points. Tie-breaker Check the public gates first. Among equally scoring valid entries, prefer the invention and central claims easiest to verify, then the most compelling visual storytelling. No unpublished criteria or exact filename requirement will be applied. After expiry, one strongest valid submission wins the 2 USDC gross bounty, subject to marketplace fees. This is a competitive winner-only task.