iLounge

By LC Angell

Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Thursday, May 12, 2005
News Category: Hacks | Mods

Chris Iwanowski of Barking Dog Studios provided iLounge with details and pictures of how the company used iPod photos at recent trade show, Museums and the Web 2005, to show off its website development work. “We wanted to stand out amongst the sea of laptops and LCD displays used by other exhibitors,” Iwanowski said. “So, we conceived the idea of using iPod photos to tell an interactive story of how our web sites are created, rather than just showing the end result.”

“We used a slide show of approximately 120 images and a looping music/voice-over track—all running from the iPod photos,” he explained. “The screen size demanded we make the experience ‘personal’, so each kiosk has a pair of head phones. The small screens of the iPod photos were framed and matted to look like miniature works of art. The frames themselves were selected to represent the character of web site being profiled.”

“The kiosks stand 7ft and were custom built,” Iwanowski said. “They utilize easily removable plexiglass panels with images adhered to the backside of the panel with vinyl cut lettering on the front. All the panels were sanded to create a flat finish. Oak 2x2’s were used as a frame between the plexiglass panels and the resulting cavity is where the cables for lighting, iPod power and headphones run. The space under the half circle table was used for storage and powerpacks. We designed the kiosks to daisy-chain together so they can easy share one power source. Each kiosk packs down to a 120lb block and fits in a 44x32x8” crate for shipping.”

“The most common question we received from attendees at the trade show was ‘how did you get those little screens in there?’ Most were surprised to learn they were iPod photos,” he said. “As many of the attendees deal in creating kiosks for museum and gallery installations, I’m sure we’ll see iPod photos used as kiosks more and more We plan to use the kiosks again—possibly adding multiple iPods to a single kiosk or even a Powerbook screen.”

More photos of the kiosks can be seen here. The slide shows are available on the Barking Dog Studios web site as Flash files (1, 2, 3 - click on “View a slideshow about the making of…”).