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See the Sign, See, See, See. by Ruth Ellen Miller (Pt. I)

"Not without the conservator taking out the art," you reply. "We're already a couple of footcandles higher than she really wants it." You think for a moment. "Can I talk with someone who is complaining?" you ask. "Meanwhile I'll see if I can find a problem."

The director hurries away. You can't have an unhappy customer, so you take a careful stroll through the gallery. You check all the basic rules about signs.

1) Are the graphics bright and clear? Each sign has good contrast. The letters are very dark against a very light background or the letters are very light against a dark background.

2) Did you pick good type? No problem. You stuck with standard types known for ease of reading. You didn't get too artsy.

3) How about speed of reading? The paragraphs or long sentences are all in a type with serif. You read somewhere, probably EXHIBIT BUILDER, the fact that the stroke at the top and bottom of the letters make reading paragraphs of text faster. You never condense type to fit in an idea. That would make reading harder.

4) Did you make the titles communicate quickly? The ideas of just a few words are without serifs. This makes bolder statements! Quicker comprehension. But you also made sure the type was big and bold to compensate for not having a serif.

5) Did you pick universal fonts? Every type is a "true" type. Every point is a "loaded" size like 12, 14, 18, 36. No type is generated or fudged or created into jagged pixels by some computer that could not translate it. Every letter is smooth. No letter has stair-steps looking like it came from an Etch-a-Sketchﾮ toy.

What can be wrong? Everything looks O.K. to you, clear and well lit. The director comes up as you step into the lobby. He has a kindly, white-haired lady at his elbow. He clears his throat. "May I introduce Mrs. Mildred Moneygalore," he says. He finally notices his glasses and quickly puts them in his pocket. "She's one of our supporters and she pointed out to me how hard it is to read the signs."

"Its not just me," says Mildred. "It's some of the staff and the docents too." You notice that the security guard nods affirmative as he walks by on his beat, peppered hair sticking out from under his cap.

The director smiles. "Mildred has left her extensive art collection in her will for the public's benefit. Isn't it wonderful. We will, of course, name the new gallery after her."

You smile too. Thats more business for your company; that is if you can solve this sign problem. The director leans over in an aside as Mildred wanders over to a 60-year-old docent she's known since a girl. "I've been going over the numbers," he whispers. "Over half of our visitors, even with all the school groups, are Mildred's age. We've discovered 80 percent of our revenue comes from seniors. They also volunteer. They have the time and money."

"Marketing tells me seniors are the second wealthiest group of Americans we can reach," he continues. "The wealthiest group is 50 to 65; but most of them are too busy with their profession to visit us on a large scale. So the seniors are the best way to growth. We'll need some fresh ideas from your design team on the type of exhibits retirees will enjoy."

You smile, but don't add to his marketing data. However, you know that men 50 to 68 are usually the decision-makers at trade shows. This is the most productive age for men. Sure, young buyers dominate the floor. But experience has taught you the ones with the power to close the really big deals for your trade-show clients are gray-haired.

You walk over to Mildred and politely ask, "Please tell me, which sign is the hardest to read?"

She quickly leads you to one of the museums best artifacts, the center of the exhibit. "The ones here." She nods up and down as she looks through her bifocals and then points out a particular sign. "Everything is dingy. Maybe if you put a little more light on the signs or even on the whole display, it would help."

Things do look a little dark to you, but only at first. The longer you look, the better things do look. What could possibly be wrong?

Suddenly you understand. You look Mrs. Moneygalore in the eye and smile. "The gallery and the signs are fine," you tell her. "I'm afraid that I am the one who was a little dim. But, we can fix that."

"The problem isn't really the signs. You were right, Mildred. It's the lighting. But it's not that it's too dim. The lighting is too bright in some places.

"The human eye works like an automatic camera. The eye reacts to ALL THE LIGHT in its field of view. If the lighting isn't uniform, some things become hard to see.

The director looks confused. You continue with your explanation.

"A humans field of view is almost 180ﾰ. Put your hands up and stretch them out to your sides, but slightly behind you. Hold them on the level of your eyes above your shoulders. Now inch them forward just until you see part of your hands. Notice that you do not have to move your hands very far forward to see them in your peripheral vision. A humans whole field of view is from where your hands are forward. The light in this whole area determines the size of your iris. It controls the automatic setting for the camera of your eye.

"If a bright light or a bright sign is placed anywhere in this field of view, your eye reacts. If you are young, your eyes can handle the glare. They adjust faster and have a greater range. But if you are older, you simply are blinded. You loose your ability to see at low light levels. The glare robs you of sight. You have to really concentrate to read. You stop enjoying the exhibits and are less inclined to read signs; or worse yet, to support the museum.

"The reality is people can see and read easily at 5 and even 3 footcandles, if we control glare. The lights have to be inside the cases or hidden in other parts of the gallery. And they can't splash stray light and scattered spill all over the walls.

"You also have to give people time to adjust. If you show someone a brightly lit sign at the beginning of the gallery and then bring them to a case lit at lower lighting levels, a college student will take about 5 minutes for his eyes to adapt.

"When you and I," you say looking at Mildred, "do the same thing it will take us 15 minutes to adapt. Our eyes take longer to replenish the necessary enzymes. That's why the gallery looked so dingy when we came directly from the lobby."

"Oh pooh! You're not that old," Mrs. Moneygalore said smiling and then stopped suddenly. "You mean that if we turn down the light in the lobby, it will be easier to see in the gallery?"

"Absolutely right, Mildred. You get an 'A'. And we'll try to get people to slow down as they go through, giving them time to adapt. The other thing we need to do is to use the 2-to-1 Exposure Rule. We see best if signs are lit at half the light level of our displays. Our signs are too bright."

"Then why are they hard to see?" the director asked.

"Signs are more reflective than artifacts. They reflect light into our eyes. And our eyes adjust to the brightest reflection, the biggest sign. Then we can't read the small ones, or see the items we display. And it will take us 10 or 15 minutes to recover. Our big signs ought to be less than half of the light level of the artifacts, maybe even a quarter.

"Oh, and one more thing. I've noticed that both of you wear glasses, either bifocals or reading glasses. We ought to place the signs where they are in the range of your glasses. Little signs ought to be close and low, in bifocal range. Larger, easier to read signs ought to be level. We can arrange that quite easily."

Mrs. Moneygalore looked at the director and smiled. "Could we have this exceptional young man do my gallery?"

The director smiles. So do you.

See the Sign, See, See, See. by Ruth Ellen Miller (Pt. II)

Here's an example of practical application of the principles of adaptation and the 2-to-1 rule. Fine oil paintings are usually lit at the recommended light level of 10 to 15 fc. If you have one watercolor in the gallery lit a 5 fc (to protect it) and all the oil paintings lit at 15 fc along with a bronze sculpture that has no recommended light level (you can use anything), the watercolor will look dull. You have exceeded the 2-to-1 Exposure Rule. Light the watercolor at 5 fc and double that amount for the other oil paintings to 10 fc (5 x 2).

You could light that sculpture brighter, but you will dull the rest of the art. If you want to light it above 10 fc, show the oil paintings first, sandwich the watercolor towards the end of the exhibit so it is seen at least 15 minutes after entering the gallery, and then display the sculpture last.

You can always go up more than 2-to-1. But you can never go down in light levels faster than 2-to-1 without waiting that exasperating 15 minutes. You can start people at 15 fc and slowly drop to 10 fc, then even 7 fc to show them the watercolor at 5 fc, then jump back up.

If you have to over expose, you must slow people down. You can use more graphics, video, audio, interactive and any other method to stall. Some museums even use slow customer service as a technique. They intentionally halt visitors at the front desk to get them light adapted from having walked in from the outdoors.

I used fiber optics, because of its incredible control. Fiber optic lighting made creating exact footcandle levels simple and dimming did not change the color temperature of the light. Other types of lighting would have taken hours to balance and adjust. Plus I am not overly fond of ladders. The 2-inch bannister in front of the painting holds all the lighting for this demo. I could stand on the floor and adjust.

Now back to the example. Notice the painting, Kay Nightwalker by B. Ward McIvor, is dark in color with a reflectance of 32 percent. The light from the fiber optics is 10 fc. Three footcandles come back to the eye as footlamberts (10 fc x 32 percent or 3.2 footlamberts.) A footlambert is a footcandle reflected off a surface. It's what we see.

Look at the sign. It is lit with an identical 10 fc. But it's 80 percent reflective. The sign reflects 8 footlamberts (10 fc x 80 percent). The reflected energy from the painting is 3 and the sign 8. This breaks the 2-to-1 Rule.

Even in a photo, you can tell something is wrong. You can see the glare. The sign is hard to read. But notice, so is the painting. The Navaho maiden has lost her expression.

The second photo shows balanced reflected energy. The painting has not been changed. It's lit with the same 10 fc. But now the sign is lit with a dimmed fiber optic luminaire at only 4 fc. The reflected energy is 4 fc. x 80 percent reflectance or 3.2 footlamberts. The sign now reflects the same light level as the painting. Notice how different the portrait looks. You can read the sign in the photo (but it still appears too bright and distracts you from the painting.).

Now use the 2-to-1 Exposure Rule. The third photo shows the same painting lit with 10 fc. But to cut the footlamberts, the sign has a black background with reversed type and is back lit. The sign still has to be dimmed. The footlamberts are dropped to 1, a light level slightly below the 2-to-1 Rule. The sign is very readable, but subtle. The painting looks incredible. (Oh yes, and on the bannister, the sign is in bifocal range.)

The difference between these examples is nothing but lighting. That's it. Yet look at the difference.

What about a tradeshow? Eyes work the same way no matter where they are located. If you light your client's products at 20 fc; your signs should be at 10 fc (20 ÷ 2) or lower. You want the product to pop as the star of the show and the signs to be supporting cast.

2003 Means Ten Years In The Field

This year some of our installed hardware in museums passed a ten-year anniversary. The warranty finally expired. Because they never needed it, our customers never noticed. The response from one library was, "Wow. I had no idea. It still works great."

We take pride in building great products. The slide-out drawer in our projector makes maintenance really easy. You can change a drawer in seconds. And you can literally replace every single part that could wear out in a projector without tools for under a hundred dollars. That includes a new one-year warranty!

As for the rest of our hardware, including our fiber, who else offers a ten-year full replacement warranty? Now that's value! That's NoUVIR.

Business Person Again

Our president was honored again. The Greater Seaford Chamber of Commerce elected Ruth Ellen Miller as Business Person of the Year for the city and area. This is a real acclamation, because Seaford is home to a diverse business community including the DuPont Nylon Plant, a large Johnson Wax Products facility, Allen's Hatchery, a number of high-tech firms, a great many agricultural companies and even some wonderful retail businesses like one of the largest Harley-Davison dealerships in the country, a family hardware store that is over 100-years-old, and a historic mill that still grinds and sells local flour.

On October 25, 2001, the notable of the city met for an awards dinner at the Seaford Country Club. It was a very special time for Ruth Ellen. She used her speak time to talk about Seaford history and the new Seaford Museum. Seaford has truly blessed NoUVIR. We hope that we are returning the favor.

NoUVIR Adds 6,000 Square Feet

All the better to serve you, we have expanded. Production has a new building. Of course, if you saw our production area; you might not recognize it as the factory. When you manufacture the finest in fiber optic lighting; you do not really work in the typical factory building. Our production area is carpeted with long kitchen-counters of butcher-block on white cabinets. Matching shelves line the walls. They are full of inventory in progress, mostly stored in clear plastic shoe boxes. Fiber optics components are miniature; so one box holds thousands of parts. Lights hang over the work areas. Windows look out onto the trees and parking lot. Long tables are used for working with fiber and packaging it for shipment. The space is open and bright. It is also kept spotlessly clean. Offices are connected, in an adjoining building but near production and shipping so anyone can ask questions. We even have one of our engineers stationed there, so technical questions can be answered right away. Inventory is yet in a third connected building which also houses the historic fixture assembly area and the labs. So now we have lots of elbow room. It's just what we needed to handle the growth. When a facility is open and clean, it's easy to maintain high quality. We are proud of our products and proud of our growing facility.

One of Industry Week's Top 25 Growth Manufacturers

That's right! NoUVIR was picked in November 2000 by Industry Week Magazine as one of the 25 best growth companies in the nation. We are tickled to be in the company of some really big companies. Why would such an honor fall to such a small company like NoUVIR Research? It's the products. Fiber optic lighting is an emerging industry and NoUVIR owns the technology that is leading the way. With 19 issued U.S. Patents and more in process, we performance that no one can copy. We offer over 100 different fiber optic products. People love them. Even magazine editors that have seen-it-all, done-it-all are impressed. But even when deserved, it's a thrill to get recognized by the leader of manufacturing. Thank you Industry Week Magazine.

NoUVIR is a Star (Literally!)

The SBA District Director, Jayne Armstrong, presented Ruth Ellen Miller with a surprise at the end of the ceremony honoring her as Small Business Person of the Year 2000. The state named a star after NoUVIR. If you look up into the night sky and find Ursa Minor, the little dipper, you will see a small point at the lip of the dipper. A star is right at the tip where water would fall out of the cup. This tiny star has been registered as "NoUVIR Research". It's our star.

President Named Small Business Person of the Year 2000

NoUVIR's story as a company is pretty impressive. That's what we, the employees of NoUVIR, think! We have discovered new things about light and matter. We have created breakthrough technology that makes fiber optic lighting work. We offer the very first light with no UV and no IR. We manufacture an elegant, high-tech product line that is easy to use. No one comes close to our performance. No one comes close to our control. Most important, no one comes close to ability to extend exhibit life by 50 to 70 times! No wonder NoUVIR lights and protects the most precious artifacts of our heritage. No wonder architects and designers are using it in fine homes, gourmet restaurants, yachts, etc. If it's beautiful or valuable or rare it's either lit with NoUVIR or it ought to be.

This is a great story of achievement for a small company. We're changing the world. And both the State of Delaware and the SBA took notice. Ruth Ellen Miller, NoUVIR's President, was named Small Business Person of the Year for 2000. Delaware may be a small state, but it's the corporate capitol of America with over 300,000 companies. You have to be noteworthy to get this award in Delaware.

We began our celebrations by giving the boss a party. She was awarded an engraved paperweight in the shape of a star and a lunch of free pizza (our favorite meal) with homemade cake. Then we had an employee table at the gala event in Wilmington. The formal dinner was to "Recognize Delaware's Brightest Stars". Ruth Ellen was the big winner. She received a large trophy from the hands of Senator Biden, and gave an entertaining speech on the advantages of being in a state with low taxes and great people (that's us). She got a standing ovation.

A month later Ruth Ellen went to Washington, DC to represent small businesses and our state. She hob-nobbed for four days with the politicians and other business people. The week ended with a formal ball. It was fun. There she received yet another award. But after all the celebration, and with her arms full of trophies; she was more excited about getting back to work. NoUVIR is her love, her vision! The best award of all is being able to help you present and preserve our heritage.