As Times Square enters its second century as the Crossroads of the World, it constantly reinvents itself as the world’s premier sign mecca.

Newly installed LED signs continue as the leading signage of corporate messaging, as they blaze alongside neon, flexible-face and dimensional signage. LED videoscreens have transformed the area into a theme park of large-format, video delights.

This annual, Times Square report focuses on three, trendsetting LED screens. Lumacom has introduced a hybrid billboard, which, by day, is a static print image and, past dusk, transforms into an LED videoscreen.

The Coca-Cola sign, versions of which have been area landmarks since 1920, features a curvilinear surface, which breaks the LED videoscreen’s flat-display mold. J.P. Morgan Chase presents a large-format, high-definition screen. An equally exciting sign depicts a whimsical, animatronic chef, who runs back and forth across a store-top sign.

Lumacom

Lumacom, a Perth, Australia-based, product-technology company, developed and manufactured a unique, hybrid billboard that’s a static print by day and an LED video display by dusk. The “LumaPanel” sign is being formulated into a growing, international network of print/electronic signs with several installations in Europe and Australia. Its Times Square debut kicks off a push to expand its network throughout the United States.

The first U. S. sign will be placed atop Four Times Square (the Conde Nast building at 42nd and Broadway), standing approximately 700 ft. from street level, making it one of the highest in New York City and an integral part of the skyline.

Rather than relying on a full LED-RGB video matrix, which would completely cover a sign face, Lumacom technology uses only 10% of the required LED units to achieve the same video-display effect. The 1 x 1-meter LumaPanel incorporates clusters of RGB LED units, with a virtual perceived pitch of 30mm between each LED cluster, which forms large gaps. When viewed from a distance, the gaps “disappear,” and a complete, animated, video image appears. Lumacon’s exclusive, abbreviated, LED-matrix technology reportedly lowers sign-board manufacturing costs, while, from a distance, it approximates a conventional, video-billboard image.

The Lumacom video billboard also provides a twofold electrical cost savings. The reduced LED cluster count and the sign’s configurations reduce the power required to run the screen. Furthermore, the sign’s video component is only engaged at night, which also saves power.

Lumacom’s co-founder, Oscar Sala, described the screen’s optical effects. He refers to this process as “pychophysics,” or the study of perception, particularly the connection between nerve action and consciousness.

As an example, examine a CRT-television screen closely, and you’ll see thousands of colored dots. From a normal viewing distance, the dots merge into a clear, visibly rendered graphic image. This “psycho-optical effect” allows Lumacom to create its LumaPanel, which requires only 90 clusters per panel; an equivalent, LED panel would use 900 LED clusters to fill a square-meter space. In turn, Lumacom provides 90% fewer pixels with all the cost-saving advantages.

To further enhance the screen¹s functions, the LumaPanel accommodates front, graphic panels, which accept vinyl or painted static prints. The graphic panels are individually mounted to each cabinet. Perforated holes allow a print to mount “behind” each LED cluster. In the daytime, the print image appears as a standard, static billboard. At dusk, the LED clusters shine through the vinyl perforations and, in the dark, present the video image.

Tom Morra, Spectrum’s director of New York City projects in Times Square, whose company installed the Lumacom sign, revisited the placement process: “The LumaPanels were designed and manufactured by Lumacom Ltd. [Perth, Australia], shipped to New York City for Spectrum Signs’ inspection, and delivered to the job site for staging. Following that, we then prepared the sign structure with an elaborate safety-netting system. Once the safety factors are in place, a specially fabricated steel grid will be rigged and secured to the existing structure. This grid acts as an interconnecting mounting platform for each LumaPanel.”

The installation required 272, 3 x 3-ft. LumaPanel cabinets mounted and connected together to form the 53 x 56-ft. videoscreen. Because no welding is allowed on the original sign structure, each panel is mounted onto the bracketed, steel-grid system and bolted in place. Power and data-feed cables are connected from the main building to integrate all the elements.

Sign installation always hinges on weather conditions, especially for a sign of this proportion. Morra said, “During the cold, winter months, Mother Nature in New York City can become our worst enemy.” And because of many weather-related delays, the sign’s premiere has been scheduled for Spring 2005.

The next “real thing”

Coca-Cola reclaimed its prominence at Two Times Square when it replaced its former automated, mechanical, fiberoptic, tilting, bottle sign (which served from 1991 to 2003) with a spectacular LED videoscreen, which could now claim to be the crown jewel of Times Square signs.

Barry Winston, a sign consultant who translated the current Coca-Cola sign from a design into its final form as an operational sign system, classifies it as one of Times Square’s most complicated spectaculars.

Chris Gagen, senior vice president and managing director of Atlanta-based Posterscope USA, which served as the project’s general manager, previously served as Coca-Cola North America’s media director.

Gagen said, “The Coca-Cola design was challenged by the Times Square sign environment, which is predominantly a sea of flat videoscreens. Coca-Cola’s solution was to break through the visual clutter of its surrounding signage by creating a 3-D, sculptured display with both concave and convex surfaces as a series of LED videoscreen segments.”

Gagen explained that the Coca-Cola segmented sign acts as a multi-image screen, showing either a single image across the entire screen or several different images simultaneously across the sign segments.

Coca-Cola’s creative content design was developed by the WOW Factor (Studio City, CA, and New York City), which not only supplied graphics, but also assisted in the sign-manufacturer selection and launch in early July 2004.

The WOW Factor’s president, Don Blanton, immediately identified his first design challenge -- how to create content when physical gaps were designed into the sign, and how a sign manufacturer would process the images across all the zones.

The answer? The sign manufacturer created a 3-D sign with high-definition, 16mm resolution and engineered the processing to display the content seamlessly across all screen segments.

From a short list of request for proposals, Daktronics (Brookings, SD) won the fabrication contract. Forty engineers conceived and completed the sign package in five months and beat the deadline. The final design comprised 32 pre-built, individual, video segments, which were shipped by 14 wide-bed trucks to Times Square for installation.

The main screen face comprises a 16mm-pitch, 1,200 x 848-pixel-resolution ProStar LED videoscreen; a 23mm-pitch, 1,200 x 848-pixel ProStar screen sits along its sign-cabinet wall. New York City-based Landmark Signs handled the installation.

The videoscreen’s multi-dimensional, curvilinear screen surface presented many fabrication challenges. Jerry Young, Daktronics’ project manager, said, “Everything about it was unique -- the way we fabricated it, the way it was pieced together, the design of its show-control system and the image manipulation process.”

During sign fabrication, Blanton and his WOW Factor team designed content that strategically works with the Coca-Cola brand, capitalizes on the sign’s unique shape and “pushes the image-processing envelope.”

The team plans to gradually evolve the sign’s capabilities from single- and multi-image formats to a more robust programming schedule that incorporates live cameras and interactive capabilities.

J.P. Morgan Chase

J.P. Morgan Chase bank’s prestigious Times Square location, at the base of the Reuters building, required an extremely sophisticated, high-resolution, LED videoscreen. Multimedia Electronics Display (Rancho Cordova, CA) provided its eVidia model.

George Pappas, Multimedia’s VP of manufacturing, said the 26 x 135-ft., 12mm-pitch, 3,200 x 608-pixel screen fits the building’s 170° radius curve. Behind the screen, a three-level, walk-in cabinet, equivalent to a 4,000-sq-ft. floor space, was built to service the sign.

Each of the 17 sign-face segments was attached to its equivalent, sign-cabinet enclosure, and the segments were brought onsite, where Landmark Signs assembled the pieces. First, Landmark placed three, horizontal, radiused-steel braces to the curve of the Reuters building. Once the supports were in place, each curved sign-cabinet segment was positioned and connected onto a beam; the assembled segments comprise the sign face.

The sign’s front-end controller, an input/output integrator video processor, handles up to 8GB of video-data bandwidth per second, said Multimedia video engineer Byran Robertus. This sign’s typical video transmission translates to 3,200 x 608 pixels of uncompressed video content at 30 frames per second.

The 8GB Ethernet data transmission manages the video and data flow. The video processor functions in a bi-directional mode, transmitting video content to the sign and receiving a continuous flow of sign diagnostics, which constantly monitor all sign components’ operational state.

Content was developed by Manhattan-based Show and Tell, a company that produces graphic and multimedia packages for broadcast and video signage. Show and Tell President Phil Langer said the J. P. Morgan Chase sign content represents approximately 40, 15-second messages, which form a 10-minute, self-repeating loop that advertises the bank’s brand and customer services. To create the highest image resolution, graphics were scaled one-to-one using a special palette of high-resolution color standards, text fonts, and degrees of video motion and still pictures.

The sign’s extreme size almost precluded a pedestrian’s view. Thus, the sign was divided into three viewing sections. The central message appears on the main screen, and supporting graphics appear on the side screens. This allows the thousands of passers-by to view the sign face at any angle at any time of day.

Also, Show and Tell was faced with another challenge -- the Prudential Financial neon sign hangs directly above the J. P. Morgan Chase sign. Langer said. “The continual use of video, plus the constant display of the J.P. Morgan Chase logo on the extreme right and the extreme left of the sign allows the J.P. Morgan Chase sign to contrast with Prudential’s static neon sign.”

Villa Pizza’s Mr. Stromboli

Contrasting with Times Square’s blazing LED video signage and high-profile corporate branding, an animatronic pizzamaker, Mr. Salvatore Stromboli, tirelessly runs back and forth atop Villa Pizza’s storefront. Stromboli carries a huge, fully cooked pizza to tempt hungry, potential customers. The figure represents a new, retro approach to outdoor signage in Times Square. Having located its new, family-dining restaurant in Times Square, Villa Pizza decided to contrast with the area’s LED screens and advertise with an anachronistic, but whimsical, icon and a neon logo sign. The chain chose Spectrum Signs (Farmingdale, NY) to design, fabricate and install the sign package. Morra, who managed the project, said the client wanted to fit into the area’s media-circus atmosphere, but also stand out with unique signage.

Andres Steinberg, Villa Pizza’s senior VP of corporate affairs, said, “In Times Square, there’s a lot of visual competition with all the neon, lights and video signage. To get the public’s attention, we wanted something moving on the sign that went above and beyond just neon and flashing lights.”

Thus, they turned to the chain’s signature icon, Chef Stromboli, as their identifier. Transformation of the 2-D chef, complete with toque and pizza, into a strutting figure fell to two companies, KX Intl. (Apopka, FL) and Spectrum. KX created a 3-D, painted, fiberglass sculpture, which is mechanically and electrically controlled. Then Spectrum faced the challenge of moving the character along the top of the main sign structure outdoors.

Designed for indoor, controlled-exhibit areas or warm climates, theme-park animatronics aren’t necessarily engineered to accommodate the extreme, harsh conditions of Northeastern winters, not to mention a Times Square street-corner application.

Morra said, “Any normal, animatronic system exposed to typical, New York City weather may have been doomed to fail. Nevertheless, the challenge was to find an all-weather, outdoor, affordable and mechanical/electrical system capable of animating the fiberglass pizza chef.”

Morra found a horizontal, motorized rail system designed to transport wheelchairs and engineered for exterior use. The rail system, platform and electronics were supplied by Handi-Lift (Carlstadt, NJ), which custom-built the pizza spectacular’s rail system.

Once the complete Villa Pizza sign package was designed, Spectrum submitted it to the Empire State Development Corp. (ESDC), the New York City office that oversees Times Square storefront signage, for approval.

The Handi-Lift rail system was mounted horizontally to a structural-steel-truss system placed above and behind the main sign structure. Atop the Villa Pizza sign structure, Mr. Stromboli moves from the 8th Ave. side, turns the corner and continues to 42nd St. At three points during his travel (at the sign’s left, center and right sides), Mr. Stromboli stops, pivots his right arm down, then up, to display the pizza. He then turns and moves forward to his next stop.

Villa Pizza also used conventional neon to highlight its presence. At the storefront’s corner, mounted to an 8-ft., projecting, steel structure, a large, arched neon sign spells out “Villa Pizza.” The 4.5 x 16-ft. letter background, comprising flat-cut aluminum, painted red, accents open-faced channel letters and exposed, ruby-red neon. A spell circuit flickers the store’s name in a strobing sequence. Above and below the letters, a curved, open-channel arch border, painted green, with a single strand of exposed, green neon lying within, highlights the restaurant’s name.

Brewing the future of signage

George Stonbely, chairperson of Clear Channel Spectacolor, a major provider of many Times Square spectaculars, summarized, “For all the great things about Times Square -- its Broadway shows, street ambiance, restaurants and nightclubs -- it’s the signs and spectaculars that make it sizzle. They create its visual excitement and the cadence of the neighborhood.”

^{Louis M. Brill is a journalist and consultant for high-tech entertainment and media communications.}