We all go to the cinemas… movies feed our imagination and transport us for those hours from the lives we lead to live that we could lead in a place far, far away where people are blue and mountain floats in air just like the ones in our lives, don’t.

Audi Signs (left) & PVR Cinemas, Mulund, Mumbai (Right)

We go in with the promise of this delivery, the anticipation of something larger, grander than anything we have known and experienced. In a nutshell, we are there to be entertained fully .

Basic plan

Candy Bar and Audi Direction Sign

A user’s experience begins the moment one enters the cinema (multiplex to youngistan). Dramatic interiors, ‘mood lighting’, cinema posters, digital media and information graphics fuel their anticipation to the experience that one is there for.

As one navigates in this branded environment, nothing should take away from this feeling of anticipation that one comes with. Sign designs and environmental graphics play an integral part in preserving and adding to one’s experience.

In their experience of having worked with two of the prominent brands in cinema exhibition, PVR Cinemas and DT cinemas, they have endeavored to offer the user an experience of the movies and the environment that they are in and that the experience is consistent in the different iterations of the same product.

PVR Cinemas

1. PVR Cinemas, NOIDA 2. PVR Cinemas, Hyderabad 3. PVR Talkies, Aurangabad 4. PVR Cinemas, Mulund, Mumbai

VADS team had been associated with PVR Cinemas since the year 2000 and seen it grow from a Delhi-based cinema to a nationwide brand as everyone knows it now. PVR Cinemas has defined the genre of multiplexes and branded environments in India with each of their properties redefining the existing design vocabulary of cinema environments. J+W London, the primary design architect for PVR, is instrumental for exposing the average movie-goer to a brand new paradigm of cinema interiors. With PVR Cinemas, VADS had had the opportunity to do some interesting signage and branding works.

Design solutions: In their role as a sign design and wayfinding consultant with PVR Cinemas, VADS had designed and standardised all signages in each of their cinema exhibition verticals, namely, PVR Premiere, PVR Cinemas and PVR Talkies. It gave benefits to them in terms of implementation of design package amongst multiple products, simplification of the complete value chain from procurement, production to implementation and commissioning. It also offered a unified brand image/identity. From an onlooker’s point of view, overall designs ensure a high-level of brand recognition and recall.

Proposed Audi Signs at DT Cinemas

Methods and materials: Over the years VADS has been formulating various iterations of standard designs set so as to respond to the architecture and ID of the cinemas keeping the main components of the wayfinding scheme standardised. With advances in materials and techniques of production and learning, the team fine-tuned the final products in physical space. This evolution of sign design identity keeps the brand fresh and new yet retaining the recognition of the old.

DT Cinemas

DT Cinemas is a distinctly different product in the space of cinema exhibition. When VADS engaged to provide sign designs and wayfinding consultancy for the brand, the cinema was just two properties old. Apart from the brand logo, the company did not have much in terms of a sign design identity.

Design selection: As DT Cinemas was at the onset of becoming a pan India brand, VADS’ strategy was similar to what they adopted for PVR, which was to design a standard sign design identity for the brand, with provision within the design scheme to adapt itself to the changing brand environment, geographical location, etc.

1. PVR Cinemas, Mulund, Mumbai 2. Typical PVR Cinema Totem Pole, EDM, Delhi 3. PVR Cinemas, Mulund, Mumbai 4 & 5. Washroom Direction Signs 6. PVR Cinemas, Mulund,Mumbai 7. PVR Cinemas, Juhu, Mumbai

Layout treatments: Since DT Cinemas was always to be part of (anchor tenant) DLF malls, VADS began with the mapping of visitors’ path from which they can recognise the brand while approaching from parking lot to ticket box and eventually the auditorium. At each point of decision making on the path, VADS designed an information system that would help visitors make ultimate decision. Providing the required information at appropriate places, VADS enhanced every visitor’s experience of DT Cinemas. The team designed and implemented two DT Cinemas in Delhi and Chandigarh.

About VersionAbsolute Design Studio From Left : Rangoli Garg, Sparlee Gogoi, Bhaskar Kumar, Arnab Banarji Koel Basu (standing), Sidharth Gupta and Abishe Ghosh Having been engaged in the process of conceptualisation, strategising, design and development of solutions for environment, VersionAbsolute Design Studio (VADS) is one of India’s foremost design consultancy firms based in New Delhi. The company gets going under a firm objective, adhered to a revolutionary and exciting design activities ranging from exclusive architectures and interior designs to communication graphics. Clientele for whom VADS has been associated with for a gamut of cohesive and comprehensive design solutions includes prominent companies from different sectors like cinemas and multiplexes, retail, hospitality and developers. (www.versionabsolute.com)