Aaron Kondziela

Before construction could begin on the Austin, Texas CyberJocks location, we needed blueprints. I was able to work with the architects, The Warrick Company, to save a little on the costs by preparing as much of the work as possible for them in advance. After making detailed measurements of the space, I used AutoCAD to draw the floorplans, electrical plans, some interior elevations, and extensive notes.

You can see here that the electrical system was quite complex, as expected in a game center that had 48 stations, consoles, a full DMX lighting system, server racks, kitchen, etc. We ended up pulling 400 amp 3-phase service into the building.

They were able to use these, with some tweaking, for the final plans. They also added the usual information for demolition, and extra pages for plumbing, HVAC, etc. They were a good bunch of people to work with, and I learned quite a bit from them, too.

Before construction of the sign for CyberJocks in Austin, Texas, I created a simple previsualization to be sure the sign would look right. The plaza regulations stipulated a white sign with gold trim (barf) which was not at all in line with what we wanted. Here is what the sign in Buffalo, New York looked like.

And, it looked awesome at night. When I designed it, I specified a strip of exposed red neon tube mounted on the channel behind the letters. The sign manufacturer, Mike Yost of Yost Neon Displays (awesome guy!) said it was one of the coolest designs he’s ever seen or built. That sure made my day!

Naturally, a sign done in white and gold would not have fit our intended tradedress, but the plaza management would not relent. Here is the previs, with the sign after fabrication and installation:

It wasn’t nearly as bad as we had anticipated. Actually looked pretty nice, even though it wasn’t in our proper color scheme. And we couldn’t do the cool neon strip below it. Moral of the story: for maximim brand-building potential, buy your own outparcel, plazas are a pain to work with.