Projects: Mosaic Video Walls At Stella McCartney Flagships

April 18, 2018 by Dave Haynes

This is the video wall set-up being put in at 11 Stella McCartney flagship stores across Europe, the US and Asia, highlighting the spring and summer collections for the fashion house.

UK integrator Freehand put the project together, developing visual interesting mosaics instead of just grouping them in big rectangles in the high street windows.

“This project was particularly challenging, due to the delivery of the screen mosaic solution to stores on different continents and time zones,” says Laura Gramston, global head of window design at Stella McCartney, in a press release about the job. “Freehand provided valuable support to our local integration partners to ensure we launched on time and synchronized with Fashion Week.”

AV nerd stuff:

Taking a new approach to the standard 2 x 2 or 3 x 3 videowalls for this project, a combination of different display sizes are configured into a mosaic formation. The 11 video walls spread across continents comprise of 59 displays from LG’s SM5KD range in sizes 32” – 55” hung in both landscape and portrait. LG was selected due to its consistency of product across international markets, meaning that one sole specification could be applied to each store. The displays were chosen for their high bright design at 450 nits, meaning they perform well in the high ambient light environment of the store windows.

A total of 83 DataPath FX4-H videowall processors drive the screens and link to 22 media players from BrightSign, projecting an image of innovation, design and individuality, whilst adding depth and dimension to the content.

“We wanted to provide Stella McCartney with a standout digital signage solution for its 2018 Spring Summer collection. It’s a really exciting project and the mosaic tiling creates a stunning effect,” says Mike Fabian, director at Freehand. “Our main obstacle to overcome was the even distribution of the video content across various screen sizes in both portrait and landscape, which were uniquely designed for each shop window. Stella McCartney’s content was filmed in landscape so we required clever editing to ensure messages appeared on the screens. We worked with Neon Circus, a fabrication company, whose design app allowed us to design accurate configurations, and utilize the LG screens in every country to deliver consistency of the hardware. The DataPath processors and BrightSign media players work in unison and allow us to continue maintaining of all the screens globally, remotely and with ease.”

So … I won’t be the only one who will notice and start head-scratching about the install job. Some of those wires are what’s suspending the mosaic, but there are signal (and other) cables dangling all over the place in that close-up photo. It’s a fashion thing, so m-a-y-b-e the customer wanted an industrial, slightly sloppy, out there kind of look.

If not, it’s just plain sloppy and a little shocking for a pro AV job. A bag full of zip ties and maybe 10 minutes of effort, and that thing would’ve looked tidy. The wide shot with three windows looks tidier, but the close-up was sent to me as PR, so they’re happy and proud, I guess.

UPDATE – See comments section – The dangling cords thing was indeed purposeful. I don’t get it, but then, about 99% of high fashion escapes me. 

Also not sure those 450 nit screens are winning the glare battle. Maybe call it a draw.

  1. As one of the teams who help install this project for Stella in the US in multiple locations, you should know just for clarity to your readers, none of the cabling you see is connected to power or a/v except for a single cord to the power outlet. All power & a/v cabling is contained within custom designed enclosures behind the displays. The rest of the “draping” you see is for an artsy visual effect.

    The design is more artwork than utilitarian. And, as always, art is in the eye of the beholder.

  2. Sean says:

    How many video wall processors? 83?

  3. Creativity always stands out, no matter how common thing you are doing.
    Nicely done.

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