neon vancouver

Bree GalbraithCody Jones

CORE Design Studio IV

Museum of Vancouver Neon App Project 2 – October 2011

Process




For this project, we were given the task of creating an Augmented Reality App for a collaboration with the Museum of Vancouver (MOV).

The brief described how just 50 years ago, Vancouver “was a riot of colour that exploded along the downtown streets by way of one of the largest displays of neon in the world.”

Our job was to explore a specific sign in a particular location in the city, take a multi sensory approach to the application, and create a sequential visual story with an associated auditory component.

The sign we selected was the Ovaltine Cafe, a Vancouver landmark that opened it’s doors in the 1940’s, and hasn’t show signs of slowing down (or changing it’s decor) since.

Overview

Core Design Studio – Emily Carr University

of Art + Design

The Visible City: Illuminating Vancouver’s Neon




A field-trip to the MOV provided us with inspiration and information on the techniques of creating and repair-ing neon signage.

We captured the neon in it’s dormant state to gain a better understanding of the parts that make up each piece. By comparing that with the signs when they are lit, we could see how the two aspects play off of one an-other.

This juxtaposition was something that we wold play on later on in our process of developing our App.

Visual Research - Signage at MOV




During our visit to the MOV, we paid close attention to the letter forms behind the neon, as well as the structure of each piece.

Visual Research




More photos from our visit to the MOV.

Visual Research




Our sign, the Ovaltine Cafe can be found at 251 Hastings Street. It was made by the Wallace Neon company in 1945, and is still going strong, drawing both people and movie sets into the unique cafe year after year.

Wallace Neon used the Ovaltine Cafe sign as their feature sign to explain to new customers the steps they take to design and produce neon signage. The sign was then grandfathered-in under the 1974 sign by-law: it projects from the side of the building facade and the neon letters occupy more that 40% of the sign face.

The Ovaltine has been seen on screen in episodes of the X-Files, Davinci’s Inquest and on the big screen in I-Robot.

Visual - Ovaltine




As a part of our research, we looked to existing examples of Apps that were using the Augmented Reality feature for inspiration.

We quickly determined that rather than have multiple AR features that would ultimately overwhelm the user, we would concentrate on the histori-cal information that surrounds our sign as well as another, yet to be de-termined feature that would engage the user and draw them further into the AR experience.

Visual/Functional




As Wikipedia explains, “Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generat-ed sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called medi-ated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a com-puter. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one.”

Visual/Functional




When we first started out, we thought about the circumstances that our user would be downloading and using the App.

We began to create scenarios, and decided that our user would most likely discover the application on the MOV website, and be prompted to download it from that space.

For that reason, we decided that our App needed to speak the same visual language as the existing MOV site, and began to create prototypes based off of this form.

We also decided early on to use the MOV typeface, Vag Rounded in our interface.

Visual Research - MOV Brand




We poured through many old newspapers that described the time when neon was making its debut on the streets of Vancouver.

With headlines such as “Neon has come to enhance the beauty of British Columbia”, we knew that we had to emphasize the history of neon signage in Vancouver.

Our research also led us to an article written for the Vancouver Sun on November 13, 2009 by John Mackie, called “Bright lights, old city: Remembering Vancouver’s neon glory,” where it was stated, “In 1953, Neon Products boasted there were 19,000 neon signs in the city of Vancouver — one for every 18 residents.No more. Times changed, neon faded in popularity, and was even derided as a “sleazy light source” by anti-blight crusaders. In the late 1960’s Vancouver council enacted

Textual Research




Textual Researchlaws that put an end to the big neon spectacular — for decades you couldn’t even put up a flashing neon sign. Today there are only a few dozen of the 19,000 signs left...

The Vancouver Museum has a collection of vintage neon signs, including classics like the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret (the Buddha’s belly ripples) and the Aristocratic Cafe (featuring the store’s dapper mascot, Risty).

But the museum has limited storage — the Aristocratic sign is so large it won’t fit through the museum’s doors, and had to be displayed outside when the museum put on a neon display. It has recently passed on several old signs, including Wally’s Burgers and Ted Harris Paints.”




Historical Neighbourhood ImagesWe used the Vancouver Public Li-brary to reference many images that showed the Ovaltine Cafe neighbour-hood throughout the 30’s all the way up to present for our research.

This aspect of our research was es-pecially important for us as we could begin to understand how the area had transitioned through the years, and the actual role the Ovaltine Cafe has played on Hastings Street.




Our neighbourhood research gave us the feeling that the AR feature we had discussed about the rich history of the sign was as important as we had first determined.

Historical Neighbourhood Images




Our early ideas had us focusing on the usability of the App, and how the user would navigate through the App. We tried to make the best use possible of the brief we had been given by the MOV, and came to the conclusion that our interface would have to be intuitive and direct.

Early Ideas




These are a few of our early examples of our initial ideas about the look and feel of our app. We stayed very close to the existing MOV identity, which we drew from the MOV website for.

We thought of the App as a container for all the MOV signs, and tried to examine what all the signs had in common, and what features they could offer the user that were unique.

In keeping with our original thought, the historical references were most important.

Initial Iterations

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Welcome!Explore Vancouver’s famous and historic neon signage from the early 20th century.Be a part of history! Add your photo (of a historic sign) to our archives!Visit the MOV and show us your photo with a historic sign to recieve $5 off your admission price!

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ARISTOCRATIC

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BOW-MAC

DUNN’S TAILOR

ONLY SEAFOOD

OVALTINE CAFE

SMILIN’ BUDDHA

the signs

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view in 3D mode

the ovaltine cafe

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The Ovaltine Cafe was established in 1942.

ovaltine cafe

Wallace Neon, who made the landmark sign, proudly used it as their feature sign to explain to new customers the steps in designing, producing and hanging a sign.

The sign was grandfathered in under the 1974 sign by-law: it projects from the building facade and the neon letters occupy more than 40% of the sign face.The Ovaltine has remained a staunchly basic cafe, with worn linoleum floors and the original booths and counters, greasy menus and indifferent waitresses.

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The Ovaltine Cafe

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ovaltine cafe i

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aristocratic >

bow-mac >

dunn’s tailors >

only seafood >

ovaltine cafe >

smilin’ buddha >

ovaltine cafe

MOV - The Visible City >

History of the Sign >

MOV - The Visible City >

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The Ovaltine Cafe was established in 1942.

ovaltine cafe i


The sign was grandfathered in under the 1974 sign by-law: it projects from the building facade and the neon letters occupy more than 40% of the sign face.The Ovaltine has remained a staunchly basic cafe, with worn linoleum floors and the original booths and counters, greasy menus and indifferent waitresses.

ovaltine cafe i

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After our first critique, we took some of the constructive criticism given to us and decided to re-think the look of our App, but keep the same features we had already designed.

It was stated that we may have gone too close to the existing MOV identity, and that we might find that by pulling back, we would offer an even better AR experience to our user.

We decided to have another look at our research, and came up with an idea that better suited the rich history of the neon signage.

Re-think




We began to re-assess our research, and came out with a new direction - one that more closely resembled the material we had photographed and information gathered at the MOV field trip.

This new (old) look would be com-bined with the functionality we had set in place, and the juxtaposition of old and new was exactly what we felt the experience would benefit from.

We wanted to highlight the history of the signage, and provide visual cues as to the age and components of the signs. By creating a vector neon sign with the Baskerville typeface, with all the connections and tubes in place, we knew that this new direction was what we needed.

New Direction




New Direction ProcessThis is an example of how we combined the old and the new - a newspaper clipping promoting neon and a close-up of the sign structure - with our ability to manipulate the graphics in our software programs.

The neon signage photographs taken on site at our field trip were most helpful in discovering how much work actually went into the production of each sign, and duplicating the many layers of the sign, while staying true to the feel of neon signage, and the look at the time, proved to be an exciting (and tedious) exploration.

IS HERETO ENHANCE THE NATURAL BEAUTY

OF VANCOUVER




As our App was to be used as a container for all signage, we went through many iterations of what the “choose a sign” feature buttons would look like.

These are a few of the examples we played around with. We used the shapes of the signs for inspiration for many of our ideas, but found that many of them were quite limiting and actually took away from the over-all experience.

PRESS TO PLAY

CHOOSE A SIGNCHOOSE A SIGN

Supporting Elements




We put a lot of thought into how our user would interact with our App, and made quite a few supporting ele-ments for listening to ambient sounds and for navigation and information that never made it into our final solution, but were important for our process.

Supporting Elements

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The look of Old and NewThe old /new theme we chose fits in with the Neon Vancouver/Ugly Vancouver theme that the MOV had told us about.

While we liked the look of our first exploration, the type would prove to be too small to read on the iPhone screen, and as a landing page, the user wouldn’t have time to take in all of the features.

Also, we felt that the title of the exhibit should be featured more prominently.



The Experience: The Splash ScreenOur splash screen showcases the exhibits title, and takes it one step fur-ther, by having the word “Vancouver” light up instead of the neon.

We chose this concept to show neon in it’s ‘uglier’, dormant state, a state in which it was often abandoned and left for the MOV to repair and bring back to it’s old glory days.

With Vancouver lighting up, we hope to show that Vancouver (the MOV) cares about the history of our city, and it’s neon signage, and that a team of dedicated people are working hard to bring the beauty back to life.

We used a neon sound gathered by the UBC student team to keep it as authentic as possible.

Please see the Quicktime file for the full effect!




The Experience: Main Navigation Page


For our main navigation, we wanted to keep it as simple and intuitive as possible, and offer only a few choices so that we could highltight the AR experience.

We used the Baskerville typeface as well as the MOV typeface to combine the old and new, and kept the MOV brand colours in our scheme.

The user is able to choose a sign, read about the history of the sign in a textual based, scrolling format, or to enter the AR experience.




If the user chooses to read about the history in the scrolling text format, they will be greeted with this screen, which is full of information gathered during our research, and the research of the UBC students.

The Experience: History Page




For our augmented reality feature, we decided to have the history and poplar culture information referenced in our App, and have the user be able to pan the Ovaltine Cafe sign from where ever they are.

Wether from the comfort of their home, in front of the sign on Hastings Street, or in the MOV exhibit, we wanted people to be able to interact with the App, and choose coded feature points that would guide the user through the history of the sign.

Some of the points would be for historical information, some are for pop culture references (including movie/television clips), and others are sound bytes that were collected by the UBC students that add to recreating the Ovaltine experience.

The Experience: The Augmented Reality




Another more conceptual feature of our App is the ability to immerse the user in the ultimate neon sign experience by projecting a chosen sign onto a wall in a dimly lit room.

This feature, combined with the sound bytes collected creates an environment amazingly close to the original, and keeps the neon sign alive for generations to experience.

Because many of the signs are no longer in their original location, but are instead located on site at the MOV, we thought this feature was very important for keeping the neon spirit alive.

If this conceptual projection feature isn’t realized in time, we thought that the MOV could install a black screen in their exhibit that was triggered by the App to show images of the signs in their original positions.

The Experience: The Augmented Reality

neon vancouver

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