August 11, 2011

The Interior Design Continuing Education Council (IDCEC)* has certified the Planar course “Designing Media Walls: Imagery, Video and Information on Digital Canvases.” Now, members of the IDCEC will receive continuing education credit for completing the free, one-hour course. Interior design is increasingly colliding with technological innovation. So, Planar has developed free continuing education courses geared specifically for designers on how to integrate highly functional media-display walls into well designed spaces.

Long gone are the days when integrating technology into your home or office meant giving up on aesthetics. The beige boxes and giant tubes that plagued earlier generations have been supplanted. Now sleek, stylish flat-panel displays are tied to powerful hardware that’s tucked away out of sight. But since this is a relatively new development, designers need to learn how to apply the tools of this brave new world.

In this course, Jennifer Davis of Planar explains the basics of video wall technology and provides a guide to the myriad specifications and components that designers need to know. Then the fun begins; the wide range of design considerations and options are discussed against the backdrop of real-world case studies. Cap it all off with an overview of the current trends in video walls, and any interior designer will find themselves well prepared to meld stunning technology with attractive design.

Planar understands that design isn’t about hammering together disparate elements; that approach is closer to Dr. Frankenstein’s work. Rather, true design, is a blending of form and function into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Join us in learning about how to blend those parts with our continuing education classes.

*IDCEC continuing education units are accepted by the American Society of Interior Designers, the Interior Designers of Canada and the International Interior Design Association.

Digital media is evolving. Designers and architects are looking beyond traditional uses like way finding and advertising. Using digital media in place of traditional print artwork to create a living space or configuring displays in a free-standing sculpture are just a few of the innovative and remarkable ways to move beyond the big black box. Even with mainstream media wall installations, you can transform a space or achieve business objectives in new and dynamic ways.

Planar can help get you started in digital media design by offering an opportunity to learn the basics of designing media walls through our free online training course: Designing Media Walls: Imagery, video, and information on digital canvases. The one-hour course provides a primer on media wall technology, reviewing key specification items, components, a list of design considerations, case studies and a review of media wall trends. Upon course completion you are eligible to earn AIA (American Institute of Architects) and state credit and qualify for HSW. Register today!

May 20, 2011

At the Digital Canvases Event, hosted by Planar Systems on April 14th at the Savant Experience Center in New York City, leading architects and designers loaned their considerable talent to put video displays through their paces and to show how the Clarity Matrix and other products from Planar are becoming important architectural tools.

The thin-profile mounting system (less than 3.6") of the Clarity Matrix delivers the world's only ADA-compliant LCD video wall and the image-to-image gap (which is as small as 5.7mm) delivers stunning imagery creating a digital canvas for the design community to discover and use.

"We responded with enthusiasm to the conceptual challenge of working within this digital video medium of the Planar Clarity Matrix," said Gisue Hariri, a partner at Hariri & Hariri-Architecture, a leading firm in New York. "We have found it an ideal tool for illuminating ideas as they map to global design concepts."

Hariri was one of the many designers who showcased their work during the Digital Canvases Event. Hariri & Hariri-Architecture featured designs that weave together nature and technology as they manifest in the firm's newest mixed-use project in Salzburg, Austria. Other architects and designers present at the event included:

• The Bjarke Ingels Group, an innovative architectural firm headquartered in Denmark, who featured a flyover video of his project with Durst Fetner Residential on West 57th Street in New York.
• Joel Sanders Architect who featured his custom executive hotel concept with a video recently hailed as visionary by the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum at The Smithsonian.
• Studio Dror who exhibited custom video of how its new global building truss 'QuaDror' was conceived and is being implemented in projects on several continents.
• VanDam Information Architects who debuted for the very first time its 'MApp' for New York City, a 4D experiential new iApp.

Click Here to view photos from the event.