Jennifer Davis, Vice President of Marketing at Planar Systems, was recently chosen to guest write for InfoComm's blog, All Voices. To read the blog posts click below:

Architectural Displays: Elevator Music for the Eyes

 

Flex Theater: Coming to an Office Near You

In early December, Miami Beach played host to thousands of artists, collectors, dealers and lovers of art who descended upon the city to attend Art Basel, the most prestigious art show in the Americas, as well as over 15 other shows happening in and around the area. For the first time, Planar joined in on the week’s festivities, showcasing Planar products at three different venues. Planar’s team, led by VP of Marketing Jennifer Davis, hit the ground running with a jam-packed schedule of meetings and events.

Planar’s art show debut launched at Avant Gallery, in partnership with Avant Gallery and Surface Magazine, at the 3rd Annual Pictures + Furniture event on November 30th. The event marked the official launch of the new Planar Silhouette displays, featuring work from top industrial design and furniture artists Chad Jensen, Philip Michael Wolfson and Pryor Callaway on two Silhouettes placed in the gallery among the art work. Planar’s displays created a buzz with attendees, many who commented they were surprised at how displays could be transformed into works of art.

 

At the PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, multimedia artist Yorgo Alexopoulos’ work “No Feeling is Final” furthered Planar’s message that technology and art can work in harmony. Yorgo used an 8x14 Planar Clarity™ Matrix LX-46 media wall to display his video art at the Cristin Tierney Gallery exhibit.

Finally at the Miami SOLO show, Planar demonstrated thought leadership by showing two prototypes of the digital canvas with technology partner Samsung Semiconductor. The displays have been designed to go beyond traditional commercial and television products, and are customized for the display of fine art with optical enhancements, electronics, and architectural frames worthy of an institutional or individual art collector.

 

The week also provided Planar with a wonderful opportunity to engage in conversations with everyone from artists to collectors regarding the endless possibilities displays can offer in the art and design realm. On Saturday, the Planar team boarded their plane back to Portland exhausted, but exhilarated with the week’s success.

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.

In the August issue of Wallpaper* magazine, they profile the exhibition they organized in the Brioni palazzo during Salon del Mobile in Milan this Spring. Congratulations to our friends at StudioDror for the dividing screen they exhibited with Alpi. Their design continues to inspire new uses and implementations.

 June 14 2011

By James Wood

The Windy City is currently playing host to the NeoCon Interior Design conference. As a part of the festivities, Planar is hosting the digital communication center. All the tweets, pictures and comments from around the floor are being routed to a 3x2 Clarity Matrix display (filtered for content, of course) and then streamed out to the passing throngs. This made the conversation online a tangible, interactive part of the event.

 

 

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Some of the highlights from the first two days at NeoCon were the cupcakes, provided by Sparkology, teasing everyone’s sweet tooth. Several exhibitors are enticing passersby with offers of iPads to be won. The first evening ended with a showroom party. There were even rumors of a wild Bono on the loose roaming the halls of The Merchandise Mart. If you don’t spot him in real life, you can always see the evidence at the Twitter Wall.

With a few hours left in the show, all attendees and exhibitors alike are still alive with energy and excitement. Everyone is celebrating the success of the show and planning for NeoCon 2012!