"What the devil is a Gobo!?" was my reaction merely weeks ago when my boss told me we were getting one for the new office. After a brief explanation I decided to Google it for myself ( other popular search engines are also available ) and it was there that I found out that a Gobo is, and I quote; "a stencil or template placed inside or in front of a light source to control the shape of the emitted light."
I can hear you getting excited already.
So in a nutshell, a Gobo is a standalone light that is permanently set up to project an image of whatever you fancy. In our case it was our wonderful logo. Slick.
We spoke to the good people over at Projected Image, ( who, as we used to be, are conveniently located in Hoults Yard ) and they set to work creating our bespoke lighting goodness. When we got the call to pop over and pick up our new toy I for one was surprised with quite how compact and sexy this little thing was. The light itself looks like a cylindrical heat sink ( presumably as these bad boys are made to be left on for long periods of time, and need to dissipate that heat somehow ) but the form factor of the unit is really quite cool. I don't know what I was expecting, but this definitely looked cooler than I thought it would. The Gobo itself is cut in house by the team, and is made from high quality glass. The really awesome thing though is if we ever get bored of having our logo on our wall, and decide to go for something different, it's as easy as sliding out the current Gobo and sticking another in!
All in all our Gobo really does look the part, and gives our office the 'wow' factor we were looking for when you walk up the stairs. Personally speaking I'd thoroughly recommend sticking a Gobo in your place of work, I'd never seen one in an office before and neither have most of our clients. It's a cracking talking point and it really does look smart.
So what's cooler then being ice cool? Gobos are, baby.
Check out Projected Image here, they're awesome. We like them a lot.