Final Year Studio - Research - Screen Media - LED Display

Image courtesy of www.computronics.biz, originally uploaded by Jimbo (Alan James Wellock).

After the changable screen introduction of the Flip-dot display system the next natural step was to evolve this on and off mechanical thinking into the digital relm, the LED or light-emitting diode display allowed this. Now the most commonly used display technology on buses, trains and in transport stations, its changable but easy to to read factors has made it a highly common communication medium. Also relatively cheap compared to LCD display screens, it works simply by aluminating specific LEDs that occupy a grid around the screen, creating a series of characters and symbols.

Although this display lacks in actual mechanical animation, its 'associative bandwidth' is still increased due to the other implications we associate with it. LED screens remind us of old calculators and stadium score boards, mediums that can only cope a with a miniscule of data each second. It is this attribute that is very interesting, because when hooked up to a network this type of display can be probably one of the most effective at communicating any kind of literal information quickly and effieciently. The only 'bandwidth' restriction occurs when this medium is used to display images and animation, due to the size of LEDs a 'pixelated' style effect occurs where the image is compressed and restricted in its asethetic qualities.