Why we started Imagination That Works
Exhibit design, fabrication, and technology have long been treated as separate disciplines. Different firms, different cities, different timelines. We believed the work would be stronger if those worlds were brought together.
Tara has spent her career across major museums, including the Penn Museum, the National Aquarium, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the National Park Service. Her roles have spanned project management, design, and content development. Most recently she served as President and COO of a leading exhibit fabrication shop that built internationally for some of the world’s largest cultural institutions. Tom has spent his career building the technology side. Interactive systems, projection mapping, RFID, show-control automation for brands like Universal Studios, Disney, Otherworld, The Escape Game, and Camp. Before that, he ran a fabrication shop building for the amusement and film industries.
Too often, these parts of the work operate in parallel rather than in sync. A renderer sketches the look without anyone in the room who can say what it costs to build. Systems get developed separately. Continuity gets lost. Half the design has to be value-engineered out to hit the budget at the end.
We started Imagination That Works to take a more integrated approach. Fabrication is at the table from the first sketch, so the exhibit that gets approved in design review is the exhibit that can be built within the budget you set. Tom’s technology integration studio, Knabe Labs, serves as our in-house technical team. Design, fabrication, and print are handled through a carefully selected network of specialist partners, chosen to suit each project. At the center is a small, senior team based in Philadelphia, deeply involved from concept through delivery, and accountable for the outcome as a whole.
Meet the founders
Tara Poag, President
Tara Poag is co-founder and President. Before ITW she worked across major museums, zoos, and aquariums in project management, design, and content development. Most recently, she served as President and COO of a leading exhibit fabrication shop that built internationally for some of the world’s largest cultural institutions. That’s both sides of the table: in-house at the institutions, and outside at the design and fabrication firms that build for them. At ITW she’s the partner she always wanted on the other end of an RFP. Which means she’s the person actually managing your project, not the person who walks out of the pitch and disappears.
Tom Knabe, Director of Technology
Tom Knabe is co-founder and Director of Technology. He’s also the founder of Knabe Labs, a Philadelphia tech-integration shop building interactive systems, projection mapping, RFID, and show-control automation. Before that, he ran a fabrication shop building for the amusement and film industries. Knabe Labs is now ITW’s in-house technology team. The touchscreen, the projection wall, or the RFID layer in your exhibit doesn’t get subbed out to a third vendor. It’s built by the people who designed the exhibit around it.
Designed to be built
Both Tara and Tom came up running fabrication shops, so when we draw something we already know how it gets built and what it costs. Fabrication is at the table from the first sketch. The exhibit you approve in design review is the exhibit that can be built within the budget you set.
How we work
At Imagination That Works, oversight, project leadership, and technology integration stay internal, led by a small, experienced team. Design, fabrication, and print are entrusted to a carefully curated network of specialist partners, selected to suit the specific needs of each project.
The exhibit and experience industry is all about specialty services. Within fabrication there are an incredible number of sub-specialties. Foam carvers for scenic work and netting specialists for climbers. Extravagant metal work for sculptural elements. Precision lighting. Mechanical engineers who invent how the interactives work. Designers to dream it all up. Tara and Tom know someone for every one of those specialties, and how to get all of that talent into one room, working together toward the same vision.
Women-owned
Imagination That Works is a women-owned company. That isn’t a marketing line. It’s the structure Tara built deliberately, after years inside an industry where women still rarely run the show. What it means in practice is the same thing it’ll mean once that’s no longer noteworthy: the person overseeing your exhibit is also the person running the company building it.
Got an exhibit, tradeshow build, or immersive project? Tell us about it.
