OUTPUT

At Birmingham Airport, waiting to greet you as you stagger off your flight and trudge down the gleaming white floor to immigration, is a rather unpleasant example of an interactive screen. I'm sure it's a very clever idea but, to my jaded eyes, every time I scurry past it to try and beat the queue to immigration it strikes me as being a remarkably poor method of welcoming people to the Midlands.

I'm all for funky designs and innovative displays which use projection technology but there's a time and a place for such installations. This 18m-long monstrosity is positioned along a wall and is brought to life by a motion sensor which kicks the display into action every time someone walks past it. And, if that isn't bad enough, there's a soundtrack complete with clashing knives and other noises supposedly associated with the 'Heart of England'.

Whether or not this display serves any kind of useful purpose is debatable but, to add to its woes, it's in a corridor location where visibility is pretty limited. An extravaganza such as this needs to be sited in an area where people can view the storyline should they want to, with the opportunity to avoid it if they don't. A captive audience is all well and good, but aircraft tend to spit their passengers out in large groups and these clusters of people will be on the move, looking ahead.

The first time I walked past this display, and set it in motion, I couldn't believe my ears. As one of a generous sized crowd moving down the arrivals corridor, it wasn't possible to stop and scrutinise it more closely and, to digest what's going on, the only way is to peer over your right shoulder as you continue walking.

I pass this sign on a regular basis and I've never seen a single person stop and look at it. On the contrary, arriving passengers tend to speed up in their efforts to avoid it. So one wonders whether any research or feedback has been garnered in order to assess the suitability of its location and overall impressions from the arriving public.

No matter which media is used, displays should serve to inform and never to irritate. And this is just one of the benefits of print, of course. In general terms, it's nice and quiet and tends to attract the attention of the passerby without resorting to a cacophony of noise.

Of course, I might be alone in disliking this unavoidable introduction to the Midlands. But I don't think so. I'd much rather see a nice run of digital print welcoming home-bound travellers and first-time visitors to Birmingham.