how tom works | Tom Arthur

sign of the times [cool signs]

tom — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:57:12 +0000

It seems all is not down and out in the world of information signage. Some new, well new to me, signs at Chipotle, AMC Theaters and Tokyo DisneySea recently caught my attention.

Chipotle Mexican Grill: New Menu Displays

Chipotle recently refreshed their menu displays with new very simple and very easy to read boards.
In addition to being easy to read, I felt like the type looked familiar. So I tried to use the iPhone application version of WhatTheFont [itunes link] but didn’t have much luck. What to do? I may or may not have emailed Chipotle asking what typefaces are being used on the new, borderline magical, signs!

A friendly Chipotle representative responded:

We use a few different Interstate fonts: Interstate Light & Bold and Interstate Light Condensed and Regular Condensed. We also use Gotham Bold on the Food With Integrity Board Headline.

Thanks to the good folks at Chipotle for entertaining my quandary. If you haven’t had a chance to check out their Food With Integrity program, do it now!

AMC Theaters: New LG Information Displays

This is the first display like this that I have seen out in the wild. It isn’t a normal wide screen monitor size, in fact, it seems to be specifically designed for information signage purposes. Here is the LG page for the new displays. I’ll give them a pass for the visible logo because of the improved functionality of this display. It’s the perfect size for placement right over a doorway or vertically on a wall next to a door. AMC needs a little help improving the graphics, but this is a drastic improvement over the old LED matrix signs.

Tokyo DisneySea Raging Spirits Safety Signage

At Tokyo DisneySea, the attraction Raging Spirits features a 360 degree loop. I’m going to guess that for some reason people just couldn’t grasp that concept [perhaps because you can't see the loop from the exterior of the attraction] so this sign is featured prominently. It’s great because it effectively communicates the message, without pulling the guests out of the theme of the Lost River Delta. A low-tech solution to a high-tech high energy ride safety concern! I hope to have a few more posts soon about some of the cool stuff at Tokyo Disneyland.

Take a look at it here:

Have you seen any other cool new signs? Let me know!

universal bingo [fun at theme parks]

tom — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:24:39 +0000

Universal Studios. I always feel like the attractions are designed with the intention of being perfect…and then it all goes to shit at the last minute. I’m not sure why so many of the attractions fail. Maybe it is the same off-the-shelf effects being used in the same way on multiple attractions, the terrible timing, the illogical stories, or the theming failures.

I’ve actually put so much thought into why many Universal attractions miss the mark and made it into a super fun Bingo Game!

So what do the squares mean you ask? Well random blog reader let me tell you. The magical series of tubes permits me to hide the explanation of each the squares, simply click to find out if we were thinking the same thing.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

It’s true Disney is guilty of many of these same things. But Universal seems to try to include it all on every attraction. Can you think of anything I missed?

sound branding [my favorite sounds]

tom — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 06:54:17 +0000

I’m fascinated by how jingles, musical tones and particular voices can instantly conjour up imagery and brand messages. Some are more obvious than others, such as the Intel tone or State Farm jingle.

But have you noticed the missed opportunities for sound branding that surround (sorry) us? Such as our commuter rail system Metrolink here in Southern California, when the doors close the train car emits quite possibly the most unpleasant sound you could design. And when conductors make announcements, they just start speaking into the microphone. Sometimes it’s defining, sometimes it’s a whisper. Fail.

On the other hand, Amtrak has a tone that plays before announcements that is quite pleasant. What’s more, the tone functions to say ‘hey you! listen! this is important.’ I can’t tell you how many times I missed what the Metrolink conductor was saying because I wasn’t paying attention.

In places like Japan and France, I encountered pleasant and memorable sound brands on public transportation and in public places. What a great idea! Why don’t we have this here?

If anyone knows how to brand a physical structure it is Disney. Background music, or BGM as it is called is constantly found around the parks and resorts…even in bathrooms! It’s actually quite eery when there is no music at the park. Everyone seems to notice when there isn’t music, but I don’t think people appreciate how much detail and differentiation there is in the music and tones. General Electric used to present Illuminations, a light, firework and water show hosted daily at EPCOT World Showcase and the exit music for the 25th anniversary version of the show ended every segment with the GE jingle.

Here is the GE “we bring good things to life” jingle in an ad from 1986

And in this clip you can hear it appended to the end of each song segment.
Illuminations Exit Music: Illuminations 25 Exit Music

My second favorite, is the SNCF railway passenger announcement tone. I heard this for the first time in Paris.
SNEF:SNCF France Train Tone

There are lots more examples. Can you think of any places that need a sound branding refresh?

we won the national student advertising competition [NSAC]

tom — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:01:19 +0000

This is a little late but the Chapman University team, of which I was a member, won the American Advertising Federation National Student Advertising Competition!

We competed against 15 other teams, and some really amazing campaigns. In the end, we were selected as the first place winner. Chapman University posted a press release and even features our team on the home page.

Needless to say, this is a exciting moment and a perfect ending to my college career. All the ridiculous moments that took place during the last two semesters have been justified.

What moments you ask? Well, how else can you justify:

Building and and upholstering a couch in a suite at the Waldorf Astoria

Making @joearthur_dog (yes, my dog has a twitter) wear a security shirt [and the credit card debt for get covered]

I could go on, but you get the point. Be sure to check out our plans book.

paying attention [even at the chevron station]

tom — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:18:29 +0000

Chevron with Techron. As if we haven’t been beat over the head enough through television, print and theme park placements, our friends at Chevron like to go the Extra Mile. No, I’m not talking about their chain of 7-11-esque quick-marts…I’m talking about the reminder that you are purchasing Chevron with Techron gasoline on the pump itself.

No, I’m not even talking about the stickers on the pump. I’m talking about this:

Yes! Even the electronic display which is used to facilitate your transaction are used to reinforce “Chevron with Techron.” Only, since I can remember, the display is wrong. Read in sequence: Chevron, Chevron with, Chevron with Techron. Gee, I didn’t know I wanted Chevron with with Techron.

I can’t be the only person that has noticed this. Chevron, it doesn’t matter what state I’m in, when I feed my car Techron, you remind me that your programer is a moron. Or just too lazy to fix every pump nation side, or maybe it’s controlled by a server in Idaho? Either way, please fix it.

On a side note, I absolutely love the new LED wraps on the canopies over the pumps. It’s very futuristic and welcoming at night, don’t you think?

3 reasons drop ceilings suck

tom — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:08:47 +0000

Last time you were in a retail store or restaurant, did you look up? Not up at the products on the shelves or digital menus but up at the ceiling. Lurking above you, in nearly every store and every office building is one of my favorite things to hate: drop ceilings.

And I’m not the only person who thinks they suck. Take a look at this post on ‘Why Architects Drink.’ The jury is out on if the two of us are crazy.

Here are just a few horrible installations that I’ve seen locally.

So why do drop ceilings suck?

individual tiles often go missing or become dislodged
dust is attracted to the tiles and is rarely cleaned off
the tiles or separating metal discolors over time

And that is just the start. We need to fight the epidemic of ugly ceilings. Especially with so many other options available, there is no excuse.

The simplest solution is to eliminate the tiles altogether. In this type of situation the ceiling is often painted black so it doesn’t attract attention. You can see this in a plethora of stores, such as Corner Bakery. [I need to find a better photo!]

Uploaded by nouveaustar on Flickr [CC Licensed]

Even something like this, which is inside a building at Chapman University, would be acceptable to me.

While there will always be situations where the evil acoustical tile grid will be required/is the most cost effective (food service), there are just too many easy ways to make a more aesthetically pleasing ceiling.

You better switch away before this happens:

Uploaded by brocha on Flickr [CC licensed]

today is my last day of class [looking back]

tom — Thu, 13 May 2010 22:49:30 +0000

This photo is from October 2004. I had just moved to California at the age of 17 to start school at Chapman University. In September I turned 18 and in October I applied to work at Disneyland. The first time, as pictured, I didn’t make it because I said I wouldn’t work on thanksgiving.

A couple weeks later, I was hired. I spent the next year and a couple months working Fantasyland Attractions. In that same short time I discovered that a film production wasn’t the major for me. I lived in three dorms, Henley, Braden and New Hall. In this short year, I met some of the best and worst people I’ve yet known.

My first serious blog “Adventures Through Southern California” also existed during this time period. The name is based off the classic Disneyland attraction “Adventures Through Inner Space.” I learned what to do and what not to do with this medium and how easy it is to offend people. So really, I learned more of what not to do.

Working almost full time and going to school full time was interesting. I figured out how to time manage. I learned that something you thought you anted to do might not be what you really want to do.

I learned how difficult it can be to deal with situations that you haven’t encountered before. How in these situations you learn how friends can be really supportive, or just destructive. More importantly, I discovered that the only person who can control my happiness is me.

Among complex circumstances and a desire for change I left Disneyland for bigger and better things. A few months later, I decided I just wasn’t yet done with Disney and went for an adventure [that I had wanted to have since being a child] that landed me in Orlando.

I spent six months working at the Great Movie Ride, and no, not on the lego version seen here. There is something to say for attractions that are so grand that you feel like you’ve left reality and are truly in a new world. True, the max 4 mile-per-hour ride system and relatively passive audience turns most people off. You really have to walk through this attraction and explore the passageways and catwalks to truly understand its magic.

From here I spent another six months in Orlando working as a technical photographer. I don’t even know what to call the division I worked for, but at the time it was Worldwide Safety and Accessibility. It was the perfect job for me at the time… I was paid to take photos of and explore the mechanical and show systems in the attractions at Walt Disney World. I’ve literally taken pictures of every attraction at every park there. I know “it’s a small world” better than anyone ever should. You can even see a couple photos I took in the Report on Safety [PDF attack!]. My leader in this position was pretty great too, and she helped me understand the professional environment…as well as the Little Mermaid.

After I completed this internship I returned to Chapman with a new mission: Graduate. Only because I wanted to switch to a Public Relations and Advertising Major I was set back. Then Chapman decided that Freshmen should be permitted to register before upperclassmen. So I was stuck for a few semesters, unable to select the prerequisite courses required to take upper division credits.

In a strange turn of events I ended up interning at Walt Disney Imagineering actually working with some of the same people I used to work with in Florida. A year later I came back as a contractor…and that brings us to today.

At school I’ve completed all of my required coursework, including Spanish. I joined the NSAC team [sure wish I did that before] and we won our district competition with Feel Free. And we are going to Orlando for nationals. Talk about weird connections! I am a semifinalist for a Cecil Award for my Entertainment Marketing project. Even better, I complete my assignment at Imagineering on the 31st and start an awesome internship with Brandtailers, an advertising agency in Irvine.

Next Saturday I’ll be graduating from Chapman with a BA in Public Relations & Advertising. I started at Chapman when the film school was in a tiny building, the library didn’t exist and the football field was actual grass. It’s been a long journey, but in the end I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had for anything.

This is all just so shocking to me. It has been a long journey from freshman to senior.

What I do know is it is only in hindsight that you see how all these seemingly random and ‘useless’ experiences combine to make you, you.

we won! [NSAC]

tom — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 06:31:59 +0000

It all paid off after nearly 8 months of blood, sweat and tears.

[courtesy of Zachary Reusing]

I hope to be able to eventually post our amazing book online here. So now that we have won at Districts…it’s time to go to Walt Disney World! Also, check out the commercial we produced!

NSAC feelFREE campaign commercial from Jon Blomgren on Vimeo.

subverting reality one consumer product at a time [TrustoCorp]

tom — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:57:52 +0000

BANKOS!, originally uploaded by TrustoCorp.

I saw this Flickr photostream on the Consumerist today. Amazing stuff.

TrustoCorp produces a magical assortment of products that subvert your expectations. Kind of like this project I did for a digital photo class at chapman.

What this stuff reminds me of is what my friend Max and I did all through middle school: Invent fun and evil products for our favorite corporate conglomerates.

They/he/she/it define themselves: “TrustoCorp is a New York based artist (or artists) dedicated to highlighting the hypocrisy and hilarity of human behavior through sarcasm and satire. TrustoCorp targets areas in the public domain typically reserved for messages of trust and authority and subverts them with messages of mayhem and absurdity hijacked from the visual style of our authorities.”

Just like Max and I did (and still do) TrustoCorp brings good things to life so that we can all save money and live better. If you know what I mean.

2009 in words

tom — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 07:18:46 +0000

Randomly generated wordle of most frequent iChat words of 2009. Larger words were more common.

Making a wordle from your iChat logs isn’t an easy thing to do. Over the last year I’ve accumulated a frighteningly large amount of iChat logs. Now, before they are all put out to pasture [well, at least in theory] I wanted to see what the major themes of the year were.

iChat saves logs of conversations in some type of weird text format so I used an application called Logorrhea to export the logs into one text file. The result: a 30.4 MB text file that contained usernames, date stamps and message content. I then imported this data into Excel making a separate column for each of the three data units. Next I deleted the username and date stamp information and exported the message content as another plain text file (5.3 MB). With another application, Word Counter, I counted the frequency of individual words and this application exported a text file with the word, frequency and length. Then, this document was imported into excel where the length column was deleted and it was exported as a CSV (comma separated value) document. I imported the CSV into Word and replaced ‘,’ with ‘:’ then copy pasted the data into the advanced wordle generator.

The wordle generator makes the word with a higher number larger in the completed wordle. I had to mess around with the list for a while and remove common english words, but what you see above is a result of this convoluted method of quantifying an entire year.

upcoming projects

tom — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:36:32 +0000

Since I won’t make it to Maker Faire in San Mateo this year because of graduation [sad day], I guess we’ll just have to bring the faire to Orange!

Here are some of the exciting projects that are to be featured at Maker Faire Orange 2010 [aka Tom's patio]

With Zach and friends we are going to try to build a laminar flow fountain. Like the ones outside the Imagination pavilion at EPCOT…

Hopefully you’ll be able to tweet to start the show!

Yyou should look forward to secret enhancements too…

+

i ‘heart’ themed exit signs

tom — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:45:50 +0000

While I was working at Walt Disney World I had a mission: take a picture of every different type of themed exit sign at EPCOT. This seemingly simple task turned into an epic struggle against the salida gods [that is exit in spanish...not the god part]. Below, you’ll see a collection of the ones I captured. I’m sure I missed a bunch, any ideas which?

One of the many reasons I love EPCOT is the little design touches that contribute to the authenticity of your experience…such as exit signs that match the theme of the space they inhabit. You see, there isn’t any reduction in the safety of the environment by theming an exit sign. It is likely 95% of the visitors don’t ever notice the signs. That is the point. If the parents of Kelsey and Hunter need to exit the building quickly, the exits are clearly marked…but when they are experencing the pavilion or attraction, the signs do not intrude or interrupt the themed experience.

When the exit signs are not themed they clash between the fantasy of the designed environment and the reality of egress safety. Designers should take note of little details like exit signs that separate a novice from a professional. In recent park enhancements there has been a switch to generic exit signs [The Land, California Adventure, etc]. Usually they are black and don’t draw too much attention to themselves, but they certantly don’t match the overall theme. Sure it is a little more expensive to paint the sign or choose a unique typeface, but the subliminal enhancement of authenticity is worth it!

Without further delay, here are some great themed exit signs at EPCOT. See if you can guess what pavilion they are from and click show below the image to find out of you are right!

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

And here are a few at other Disney parks…

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Does anyone have photos of these exit signs?

Mission Space
Test Track
Old Journey Into Imagination
Spaceship Earth

Maybe I should ask, has anyone else noticed these exit signs?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

brick in my window

tom — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:05:58 +0000

Literally. Someone thew a brick and a rock through the front window of my house. On Thursday at 6 something in the morning I heard a loud crash. At first I thought it was part of a dream but decided I would look around to be sure. I walked upstairs and everything was fine, I walked downstairs, opened the door to the bedroom and saw this:

I got my shoes and phone and called the police. There wasn’t anyone outside and no note. I called the non-emergancy line and the police wouldn’t come out because there wasn’t anything stolen. They instructed me to call back after 8 so I could make a report.

Thankfully a friend of mine intervened and got the police to actually come out and and take a look, although that didn’t happen until around 9. I made a homeowners insurance claim and contacted companies to get the window replaced. I even got plywood and boarded up the window myself. I still need to find a general contractor to fix the floor and drywall. Any ideas?

I’m happy no one was hurt and nothing was stolen, but this really freaked me out. I don’t really know if I was targeted or this was just a random act.

excited for NSAC and how i’m feeling

tom — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:34:54 +0000

All in all this week is off to a good start.

I went from a 50 to a 90 in Spanish. It’s amazing how much not having to spell things from memory improved my test score. Unfortunately, the midterm will likely be back to the old style.

Tonight we had the second NSAC meeting and it too went well. I’m really excited to be taking part in at least one team before I leave Chapman. The added bonus is the people all seem really cool. Maybe I’ve found a good place to be.

Troy left for Zion this morning and now is out of cell reception/his phone is off. I really would like to be with him. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been somewhere where I was completely unplugged.

Interesting too, this is the first time we’ve really been seperated in a way where we can’t communicate at all. I feel really middle school bringing it up but it’s new to me! Backpacking I really want to do again. I’ve spent too much time here in Orange lately.

At least the rain tonight is soothing.

On a related note this semester, I need to cheer up. I’m lost in a sea of projects and being miserable doesn’t make it any easier. So please, force me out of the house. I want to enjoy senior year as much as I want to do well with these projects.

What do you do to keep your spirits up?

Virgin America gets a lot right

tom — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:00:04 +0000

Virgin America seems to understand why we all hate airlines and is trying to do something about it. You mean I don’t need to treated as a necessary hassle? Ugh, more paying customers! Yes, Continental I’m looking at you.

Being a new airline with new planes has it’s advantages. All VA planes are equiped with Gogo wireless Internet. Gogo is probably the most amazing discovery since roast penuts. VA’s RED entertainment system is also cool; it provides Dish Network live TV, on demand movies, music and TV, in plane chat. Oh yeah, on demand food service too.

Did I mention the LED lighting that changes color depending on the time of day? Or the Method handsoap and swanky music in the bathroom? What about the power outlets at every seat? Or the ingenuous idea of mounting AVOD hardware under the floorboards then in your foot space?

There is so much that Virgin America gets right that I wish they flew to more places so I wouldn’t have to go back to being treated as cattle.

Virgin America is great but does have some odd problems:

They don’t have a mobile site. Want to check in on your phone? Good luck with that.
When you check in for your flight the website may offer an upgrade (for an aditional cost). But just kidding!! The ‘friendly’ rep on the phone said actually NO upgrades were available. To this moment, 10 hours later, the website is still trying to sell upgrades that apparently don’t exist. How evil is that?
You might sit with Satan children and adults who don’t control them. If it wasn’t for Gogo I might have gone mad. Thanks to these folks, our flight broke the world record for number of flight attendant call button pushes in 6 hours. If you still don’t get it, this same party had a 7 year old in first class, unattended, because she ‘loves the attention.’

This is what was left over from the monster child and family. Yay children?