Movieing into the Future

I was in the airport on my way back to L.A. the other day when I saw something that caught my eye and got me to thinking – empty telephone booths. There wasn’t something in particular about them that caught my eye, and I was by no means surprised to see them all empty. I think I was just surprised to see so many telephone booths still in existence. In a day and age where every man, woman, and child has a smart phone at their fingertips by the time they can walk, I found it odd why nothing had been done yet with these phone booths. So then I got to thinking – what could be done to make something out of them. Maybe there was a way to repurpose these underutilized phone booths and give them new life. But what exactly could you do?

Here’s an idea…

What if you took these empty boxes of outdated incommunicado and installed touch screen technology within them that would enable users to purchase the latest movies, TV shows or video games etc. and download them directly to a computer, iPad or smart phone within minutes.

So what’s the point?

Utilizing the existing infrastructure would save money on the cost of removing the old phone booths. It would also save on any costs required to build new kiosks to house the touch screens. On top of that, installing the latest technology would turn the historic phone booths into living, working, breathing money makers once again.

While this may only be a temporary fix for a snapshot in technological time, it is relevant to a captive audience of consumers still flying on planes without integrated high speed WiFi, waiting for a flight to board. Time may have taken the phone out of the phone booth, but technology may have found a new niche.

Just a thought…

Aaron Birney is a designer who thrives on the fast pace and creative integration of translating brands into the built environment. Aaron approaches design holistically, considering the many different elements that define a strong user experience and that represent the brand. For each project, he pairs his understanding of human behavior with the exploration of environmental, architectural, product, retail, and graphic design solutions to create a cohesive experience. You can contact him at aaron_birney@gensler.com.