Hy-Vee, Inc., one of the largest employee-owned companies in the United States, recently brought the idea of “something old, something new” to its brand-new West Des Moines conference and event center by installing cutting-edge NanoLumens curved Nixel Series LED displays in the lobby to show highlights from the company’s rich 87-year history.
When building the new Ron Pearson Center, named after former Hy-Vee CEO Ron Pearson, the company wanted to pay homage to its long, successful history in a way that would engage and hold the attention of every visitor to the center. Company officials decided to turn the building’s lobby into an 11,000-square-foot history pavilion, naming it after another former CEO, Dwight Vredenburg, and they hired Dimensional Innovations, a Kansas-based architecture and design firm, to design and fabricate the space.
JC Hendricks, Vice President and Creative Director, and the Hy-Vee team agreed that the space needed some really cool technology to draw people in, and with six columns in the room featuring display cases with historical items, the NanoLumens curved Nixel Series LED displays presented a good opportunity to surprise guests with 360-degree displays.
“Hy-Vee’s Dwight Vredenburg History Pavilion really is a show-stopping display of artefacts, advertisements and photographs from Hy-Vee’s nearly nine-decade history,” Hendricks said. “Using Hy-Vee’s bright colour palette and some creative design ideas, we designed a space that encourages guests to walk around and learn about the company in an exciting, novel way.”
NanoLumens was also the only manufacturer producing displays that could accommodate the tight curve of a 4-foot diameter column, and specifically designed the columns to ensure the displays would fit perfectly.
“We wanted to use every available space to capture people’s attention, and the NanoLumens Nixel Series displays were the absolute best way to utilise the column space,” Hendricks added.
The Nixel Seriesi displays are currently showing a two-hour loop of commercials and videos from the company’s past, with each column staggering the timing so visitors get to see different videos as they peruse the room. This way, guests can see more of the full two-hour video than if it were timed the same on every display. The displays themselves feature a 5mm pixel pitch design, are two feet tall and are positioned eight feet off the ground.
As visitors tour the lobby they are taken on a decade-by-decade journey through the company’s history. Each decade has its own section of wall complete with an LCD screen to display images of people and events during that period, and glass display cases featuring artefacts, books and photos. Combined with colour-changing LED backlighting for each display case and column, the curved Nixel Series displays help to give the whole room a futuristic appeal.
One of the most important considerations for the owners and the design team was the ease of repairs as well as longevity of the technology. NanoLumens offered a six-year warranty that covered each display down to the individual nixel (the small subsections that comprise a NanoLumens display), and the displays feature a fully front-serviceable design so any maintenance can be completed faster and more easily.
To make things even easier, the Dimensional Innovations team also custom-built a proprietary content management system to allow the staff to update all the displays at once, which saved on time and energy.
Commenting on the project, NanoLumens Regional Sales Manager, Southern MidWest Eric Seigler noted: “Regarding the Hy-Vee installation, Dimensional Innovations had a specific need for their client that involved column wraps with a seamless LED solution. Dimensional Innovation engaged NanoLumens to create these one-of-a-kind displays that fit into the space with precision and elegance. This is the first of many projects on the horizon with the two organisations and NanoLumens values their partnership, experience and expertise when dealing with complex technological designs.”
