For the start of this series of unique Times Square signage, click here.
Ann Taylor Loft
On the south end of Times Square (42nd St., between Broadway and Seventh Ave.), a distinct, white, illuminated, flashing ribbon wraps itself around the perimeter of Ann Taylor’s LOFT store. Doug Morris, of NYC-based Morris + Poulin, designed the ribbon in collaboration with the store architect, Callison (Seattle).
Morris said, “Our design guideline from the client was ‘the Ann Taylor Loft girl comes to Broadway.’ To create the appropriate Broadway-theater spectacular, we took the traditional Broadway marquee, a flat panel with flashing bulbs, and transformed it into a complex, twisting, curving ribbon that’s completely covered on both sides with programmable, animated LED, polycarbonate bulbs.”
Two ribbons were created: One ribbon faces the Broadway side of the building; the other faces Seventh Ave.
The 5-ft.-high x 160-ft.-long, aluminum, curvilinear ribbon is festooned with more than 35,000, cool-white, OptiLED (Irvine, CA) LED bulbs. The LED bulbs cover the entire front and back surface of each ribbon.
Design Communications (Boston) engineered and fabricated the entire sign package, which was explained by project manager Karen Gorezyca: “The sign is unique in several ways. First, the sign face [both sides] was populated with approximately 35,000 LED lightbulbs, which called for an equal number of holes to be cut through the sign surface. The holes were inserted by a waterjet-cutting process, provided by Airflex Industrial [Farmingdale, NY]. Once cut, the holes were filled with snap-in sockets. With the sockets in place, thousands of socket wire harnesses were installed under the guidance of Quantum Electric.”
“The Loft” is emblazoned several times across each ribbon in bright-white neon. The matte-black exteriors of the double-stroke, exposed-neon channel letters contrast with the metallic-white interiors.
Going Sign (Plainview, NY) brought the finished ribbon structure to Times Square and installed it. Gorezyca said, “Each mounting bracket was custom fabricated to accommodate the variance in distance, angle and pitch from the building. To ensure what we were building in the shop would match perfectly in the field, we mocked up the building wall and connecting plates in the shop.”
The store’s floor-to-ceiling windows reveal the LED ribbon lighting to customers and passersby, simultaneously. Passersby could see the outer-facing ribbon flashing, and, inside, customers could also see the back of the ribbon flashing. Morris said, “We illuminated the back-facing side of the sign so customers inside the store could sense the visual excitement that draws them into the store as an ongoing interior store experience.”
Spotlight
Spotlight, a nightclub/karaoke space on Broadway and 49th St., “spotlights” guests’ karaoke performances on its Daktronics (Brookings, SD) full-color, LED video display on the front of the building. The nightclub truly lives up to its name.
Let There Be Neon (LTBN), NYC, created and project-managed Spotlight’s entire sign package, which includes the large LED screen and a channel-letter component. Jeff Friedman, LTBN’s president, said the logo comprises “a large, closed-face, channel letter, with an LED illuminated sign, in a script form that spells out the club’s name. On the edge of the Spotlight name sits a closed-face, blue, LED-illuminated bird. The entire LED logo display was installed over a sign cabinet hung on the front of the building.”
Complementing the logo sign, the LED videoscreen provides a digital window to the restaurant’s “entertainment.” Inside, a live camera focuses on the karaoke station. Dave Ramirez, Daktronics’ New York sales-account executive, said the screen presents “decisive moments,” plus nightclub promotions and third-party advertising, to promote upcoming, featured entertainment.
The 20mm-pitch ProStar unit measures 33 ft. tall x 26 ft. wide, with a 512 x 400-pixel resolution. Unique to this display, the Picture-In-Picture visual component inserts a second, smaller, display window within the larger, storefront sign. To control simultaneous image displays, Daktronics integrated its Venus 7000 controller and a V-Link configuration. Thus, the nightclub can simultaneously promote its ongoing events as its guests appear “live” on stage and on screen.
Ramirez said the sign’s new demographic orientation (pedestrians walking south from Times Square, as opposed to advertising to passing, vehicular traffic) reversed the sign-placement strategy. Rather than facing oncoming traffic, the screen faces Times Square’s main courtyard.
R. Scott Lewis (New Canaan, CT) redesigned the structure. Interboro Sign & Maintenance (Brooklyn, NY) installed the LED videoscreen and the channel letters.