Spectaculars Dictionary


Term	Definition

Adfotainment	A genre of content designed to provide advertising, information and entertainment in an integrated fashion. This is often realized by means of digital signage and forms of Internet advertising.

Architainment	A growing trend that combines the creativity of entertaining LED technology through the use of intelligent theatrical lighting with the excitement of architecture. Also referred to as Electrotainment and Interactive Architecture.

Branded Cities	A transformation of single-developer and mixed-use real estate properties into entertainment destinations through dynamic signage.

Brandscapes	Alignment of brand experiences with people's lives, concentrated where they live, work and play. When put into action, Brandscapes allow brands to be experienced in several dimensions in a controlled environment that reaches shoppers, residents, local businesses, sports fans, and corporate customers.

Destination Signage	Signage used to brand high-traffic, urban areas as places for people to congregate and come together as a community. Often used within Branded Cities and may take the form of Spectaculars, Brandscapes, Media Facades, Media Walls, etc.

Dynamic Lighting	Advanced lighting solutions that offer the dynamics of daylight in the work setting. Following daylight’s rhythm, Dynamic Lighting creates an invigorating atmosphere and enables people to control lighting according to their preferences.

Electrotainment	Refer to Architainment.

Environment Graphic Design	A design profession embracing many design disciplines including graphic design, architecture, industrial design and landscape architecture. Practitioners in this field are concerned with the visual aspects of wayfinding, communicating identity and brands, information design, and shaping a sense of place.

Freeform Video	Term used for describing LED elements wrapping and covering architectural structures in multiple dimensions at both a large and small level. Freeform video can be added wherever an artist or architect desires a video effect.

Infotainment	Information-based media content or programming that also includes entertainment content in an effort to enhance popularity with audiences and consumers.

Interactive Architecture	Refer to Architainment.

Las Vegas Strip	An approximately 4 mile (6.4 km) stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, United States. The main thoroughfare traveling through Las Vegas, the Strip is known for its lavish casinos, hotels and their glowing neon signage. More recently, what was once neon has been replaced to reflect today's modern LED signage.

Light Facades	A variation of a Media Façade that only illuminates using different colored lights and does not integrate graphics.

Media Architecture or Mediatecture	Approach to technology, architecture and media art in modern cities.

Media Façade	Combined aspects of lighting and graphics in formats determined by the architecture, these may differ fundamentally in format, resolution and dimension from the square media image. Also referred to as a Media Wall.

Media Wall	Refer to Media Façade.

Mediascapes	Advertising and media that directly affects the landscape, such as billboards, Spectaculars, etc.

Piccadilly Circus	A famous road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster, built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly. Piccadilly Circus used to be surrounded by illuminated advertising on buildings, starting in the early 1900s, but only one building in the north-western corner between Shaftesbury Avenue and Glasshouse Street now carries them.

Spectacular	Gigantic, elaborate sign, usually illuminated and animated, used as an advertising billboard. The term was first used to describe the electronic signs specific to Times Square, but can be cross-applied to describe intricate signs in other geographic locations as well.

Times Square	A major intersection in Manhattan, a borough of New York City at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets. The Times Square area consists of the blocks between Sixth and Eighth Avenues from east to west, and West 40th and West 53rd Streets from south to north, making up the western part of the commercial area of Midtown Manhattan. Times Square is the site of the annual New Year's Eve ball drop, is often referred to as the "Crossroads of the World," and is principally defined by its Spectaculars, animated, digital advertisements.

Urban Renewal	A program of land re-development in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. This process began as an intense phase in the late 1940s and continued into the late 1970s with traces of it still occurring in the early 1980s and today. It has a major impact on the urban landscape.

Urban Screen	LED signs, plasma screens, projection boards, and information terminals on an architectural surface used as public space for creation and exchange of culture, strengthening of a local economy, formation of the public sphere, and as an experimental visualization zone.