Custom Digital Signage Interactive Kiosks

Nowadays trend of having a unique custom design has risen more of the industry that works in field of manufacturing self service and digital signage are being requested to have customisation as part of its tool kit to be able to satisfy savy based clients whose appetite for enriched designs are part of the solution they wish and only those firms who can bring innovation into a design concept for hardware will win lucrative contracts that are on offer.

KT Group has been working with industrial designers since it began, it was vision of KT CEO Kenneth Larsen when first launching his company back in 2005 that a cornerstone of its product portfolio required for its success and longevity lay in being able to resource with industrial designers experienced in creating visionary designs.   Twelve years on and well over 100 ideas the company has worked with some of the top tier billion dollar corporations and were awarded small and also large contracts because of its ability to present a design that met with there vision of a concept.

Digital Signage crops up everywhere in retail and transportation sector, need for information exploding since turn of millennium has created a billion dollar industry with many endowing their success on developing platforms to showcase visual art and hosting the visual digital information is on a terminal,  part of KT Group custom platform certainly contains many variations to industry leading design innovation and a few showcase pieces demonstrate that.

1. Interactive Mall Terminal Concept

2. Interactive Outdoor & Indoor Mall Terminal Concept

 3. Bus Stop Interactive Information Terminal Concept

 4. Interactive Mall Terminal Concept

A few selected concepts all of these concepts were developed and engineered and 2 of them went onto mass production,  but these concepts strengthened core of KT experience that our visions to enhance the locations will assist in success of a project.  Namely the public will always been drawn to visually impacting designs. 

Digital Advertising integrated self service kiosks

Self Service Kiosk Terminals can take many shapes and sizes,  are designed to entice users to interact in all kinds of mannerisms whether for purpose of providing information, vending, payment, directional way finding, providing health statistics, ordering, retail check out the list expands each year as new concepts launch but one primary factor that we see more and more is the importance of adverstising digital monitors that are integrated above or on sides of enclosures.

At KT (www.kioskterminals.eu) our designers have worked on hundrends of projects all requiring addittional monitors of all varying sizes, the above image of a ref model we designed for a UK client we labelled X10 had in fact 10 monitors of which 6 were purely for purpose of advertising displays.

More basic versions as the one above shown labelled Aura could purely be a touch monitor with a slightly larger monitor above providing information on services the kiosk itself offer in this case for cinema ticketing dispensing.  It can for example display movies being shown or coming,  short promo clips of the movies at cinema and special offers on tickets or snacks. But there are also those as shown below

which are designed for outdoor public use, in this case at bus stops that provide a touch monitor for user to source relevant information on his journey and the main monitor displaying advertising which are managed by large outdoor firms such as JCDecaux, ClearChannel, Capital as some examples that manage brand elites of retail worlds advertising forey into public space ads.

Other versions can include health kiosks such as KT model i5,  being currently deployed in the Middle East in pharmacies and hospitals have simple advertising monitors installed that display latest pharmaceutical products that big brand medical companies wish to promote while the terminal itself provides vital health stats to consumers instore or in waiting rooms in hospitals. 

In fact according to sources at pqmedia revenues in 2012 were at $7.88 billion for advertising out of home a label they call DOOH.  Now that may not seem a high figure but if you cast yourselves back to turn of century their was very literally no digital signage advertising in market so in past 12 years to grow from a nurturing business to a multi billion dollar industry shows immense growth and the markets are expanding by each year as is deployment of self service kiosks.

Digital Signage Indoor vs Outdoor

The market exploded some ten years ago with digital signage and there was a clamor for innovation to be pursued both in software and hardware, the likes of Four Winds Interactive, Working Solutions, Scala were all feverishly working on launching their DS platforms to present to the global retailing markets.

The hardware sector saw the development of large style pylon enclosures being launched from companies like Friendly Way, Rosendahl ConceptKiosk, Protouch and KT Group.  The real challenge for hardware manufacturers was to develop a completely hermetically sealed terminal that could be used in harsh outdoor conditions and especially challenging when it is plus 30 Celsius outside.

KT Group working with US based design corporation Shweikart developed its own unique designs in form of model Essence, these were robust curved enclosures with ability to stand both internally inside and with optional weather pack be suited for outdoors as well.   The enclosures were designed for large monitors not 42 inches but 55 or 65 inch panels as big was bold and beautiful then.

The outdoor version was manufactured in a thick steel plate and had outdoor powder coat textured paint finish for a robust shell,  inside the unit boasted its own air-conditioning and heating system that was automatically thermostatically controlled so that enclosure could operate in both climate below zero Celsius as well as plus thirty Celsius. 

Several options could be combined if required such as WIFI, RFID and Bluetooth all popular for several marketing purposes and the large monitor panels were fitted with special developed projective capacitive touch panels. 

These units can be found both in North America, Europe and in Middle East and many of them are now well into their 7^th and eighth year and still running without critical failures.   Digital Signage has slowly declined since its heyday but there is still a tremendous interest in all sectors of commercial private business markets for interactivity and advertising.  

Digital Signage Designed By KT For GUM Moscow

On October 2014, when I was sent by KT Group for a business trip to Moscow, like always I visited the GUM. The GUM is a shopping gallery in Red Square and is considered by many as one of the most beautiful shopping centers in Europe. It was built in 19^th century, during the Soviet period it was a shopping center for government and for the past 20 years it has developed to be the most premier center for shopping in Russia.

Spending 3 hours in GUM, eating their famous ice-cream and walking around beautiful shops, I noticed that it is very difficult to find a shop that I looked for as well as other information regarding the center. It took me some time to find an information kiosk (information stand), which was located on the other side of the GUM. Another interesting observation I did was a lack of electronic equipment in open areas except one ATM covered by a wood board to hide its “modern” design.

When I came back I got this concept in my mind: “what if we can design an information kiosk terminal which can be multifunctional and interactive but in the same time be a part of the main design concept of GUM?”.    KT Group known for its bespoke design kiosk terminals, manufactured according to client wishes and in most of the cases designed to accept payments. In this particular case, the process is different since KT is the initiator of this concept.

During 3 months 2 young designers, under the supervision of KT team, developed a concept and came up with the kiosk design. To achieve this goal the team had to investigate about the history of GUM, its design, cultural aspects, visitors’ behavior and many other aspects.

As a result, KT offered a design which exactly matches the style of GUM and fits in to the harmonious atmosphere of the center. It based on a 42” 4K LG Screens on both sides, with multi touch capabilities. It also have HD camera, barcode scanner, printer and powerful Wi-Fi transmitter.

By using this kiosk terminal the visitors can easily find what they looking for and navigate to the desired shop using their mobile phone (smart way finding system), or they can send their own photos from GUM to their friends. In additional, this kiosk terminal can be used by GUM administration as an advertising kiosk, information collecting and addressed marketing.

The project designs is now ready for implementation and KT Group has finalized its preparatory work.