Kingwood Center Gardens
Kingwood Center Gardens is a garden estate located on 47 acres in Mansfield, OH. While it once was the home of Charles Kelley King, Ohio Brass Company’s first electrical engineer in 1893, today it belongs to a private foundation that continues to operate Kingwood Center as a public garden visited by thousands of guests annually.
At Kingwood Center, guests have the opportunity to wander freely throughout the facility viewing both gardens and the famous mansion that still stands on the property. While allowing visitors to explore freely leads to an enjoyable and educational experience for guests, it can sometimes be difficult for employees to communicate with them. This realization brought about a need for Kingwood Center Gardens that we were able to help them solve.
When employees are unable to be around answering questions and offering assistance, there are a few other ways you can communicate with your guests. The first solution we brought to the table for Kingwood Center was our Retriever Digital Signs. By using Retriever, Kingwood is able to improve the guest’s experience and make the employee experience easier overall. Kingwood uses digital signage in various buildings throughout the property, including their newly completed Garden Gateway Center. In the Garden Gateway Center, Retriever is used to display things such as the menu for the cafe, rateboards on the front of the front desk, and general signage. These digital signage screens work to save Kingwood time and money because if rates change or the menu gets updated, they are able to change the information displayed on the screens in a matter of seconds. Using Retriever, Kingwood also has the ability to display location-specific information to guests. For example, a Retriever could be included in a building that only displays fun facts or history related to that exact location. That being said, all of the various screens can still be managed from one simple web application, making creating slides with location-specific content simple and easy.
In addition to their Retriever usage, we have also worked with Kingwood to design interactive Kiosks on display in the Garden Gateway Center. The Kiosks include an animated map of the 47 acres and allows users to click on areas of the property to explore more about the location. When guests click the “learn more” tab on a location, they will learn facts about the history of the location and see countless photographs, from both the present day and from the early years of the property. While Kingwood does offer tours of the property, this adds a unique way for visitors to explore the property on their own.
Along with the work we have done for Kingwood in relation to solving their communication needs at the garden itself, we have completed several graphic design projects for them. First and foremost, the design within the kiosks themselves was completed by our graphic design staff. Other graphic design projects we have completed for Kingwood Center Gardens include the designs for print pieces such as pamphlets, illustrations, and large scale maps.
We have also completed a handful of video projects for Kingwood, including a documentary-style piece over ten minutes in length and including fourteen different interviews pieced together to create a beautiful story about the gardens.
Regardless of the type of project we are working on, we love knowing that we are helping a client create a solution for a problem or need they may have. As locals to Mansfield ourselves, we can visit the gardens with our friends and families and find it rewarding that we played even a small role in helping Kingwood Center Gardens become the beloved attraction it is.
