Barco, Barnycz Group partner with American Eagle Outfitters on Times Square

Visualization specialist Barco announced earlier this week that American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) selected a variety of Barco LED and LCD products for their new flagship store in New York City's Times Square.

American Eagle Outfitters leveraged the store's distinctive exterior architecture to create a dominant visual landmark in this most iconic of urban settings.

At the onset of the project, AEO turned to the Barnycz Group, a Baltimore-based design firm that specializes in the creation of large-scale interactive content environments.

"In Times Square, what we wanted to create for American Eagle Outfitters was a 'canvas' that brought their brand and lifestyle to front and center," said Danny Barnycz, the company's founder and president. "We created a multitiered interactive high definition digital canvas that allows the retailer to dynamically communicate its brands and promote its product offerings."

Concepts for the exterior display took the form of a 12-faceted assemblage of LED panels, almost 15,000 square feet in size, including a soaring 25-story LED tower. When AEO and the Barnycz Group were ready to implement their vision — they selected Barco. To create the display, Barco engineers wrapped the building's exterior façade with 1469 Barco TF-20 LED panels, on 12 distinct geometric surfaces — for a total pixel count nearing 3.5 million. These weather-resistant panels are designed for rugged outdoor environments, with the ability to deliver 281 trillion colors with stunning clarity. The ceiling of the building's outdoor foyer is comprised of 1665 Barco OLite 612 modules, specially designed for optimum viewing at very close distances. To complete the visualization package, immediately inside the store is a bank of 21 Barco NSL-46 LCD monitors, arranged in a 7x3 array. Purpose-built for a near-seamless presentation, these monitors will allow content to be displayed in its native resolution, without any loss of image quality. Content for the multiple LED and LCD displays originates through dual Apple Macintosh computers and includes a mix of photos, video, graphics, animation and text. To process the array of multi-format video, dual Barco DX-700 LED digitizers are used for optimum visual quality.

"To make something like this happen in Times Square truly motivates our entire team — from R&D, Sales, and all the way through Operations and Service," said Dave Scott, president of Barco, NA. "Because we continue to strive for innovation, flexibility and creativity, the American Eagle Outfitters Times Square display represents a new achievement in technical and artistic outdoor LED displays."