Dear Person, Who Opens My Newsletter,

Thank you for opening it! I am deeply grateful. As you may know, I am working on a graphic novel called LUNA LILY, but I do other projects as well to pay the bills and keep the lights on in the studio. One project I worked on was to convert an old 1955 Bell and Howell telephone booth into an interactive, touch-screen student exhibit where students, along with faculty and staff can record their stories. Stories will add to the growing history of the new Camden High School in Camden, New Jersey. I worked with Brad Larson and STORY HABITAT, a company that creates kiosks for museums, libraries, and learning institutions all over the world!

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you next time! -Bob :)

This project started inside an old warehouse outside Camden, New Jersey. An old phone booth needed to be restored and made into a story kiosk and placed inside the new high school that was being built. It was in tough shape, but I didn’t worry. I wasn’t the one who was going to restore it at this point. My job was to design the plans to restore the booth and let contractors do the work.

I got a few measurements and mocked up some design ideas and sent them along. The biggest graphic challenge was to create graphics for the doors. I knew I wanted to create the illusion of a functioning phone booth. I found an image of a 1956 phone and used that. I recreated the bench using photo references and the original bench seat from the booth.

The Main screen that everyone would see needed the Camden High School logo. As a designer, I took the old logo and changed the font to fit the style of the exhibit. I upgraded the Camden cougar without hurting the integrity of the original image.

As I worked on the graphic design side, I had the idea that I’d like to help refurbish the booth as well. I knew a friend, Dave Tuttle, who has a workshop and thought I’d ask him if he’d be interested in helping me fix up the booth. I talked to Brad and he presented the idea to the Camden group, and they approved since the contractors would have to add fixing up the booth to their already tight schedule. So, the restoration began with a long ride with Brad in a nine-foot van to Camden from Massachusetts.

The touch screen for the kiosk needed to be mounted behind the front doors for easy access. We carefully removed all the back wall veneers and placed them on a new wall built behind the front doors. Locks, hinges, and a monitor mount was added. The sides looked a bit bare, so I created custom vintage telephone booth decals to the sides (see public telephone signs above). A project I thought wouldn’t be difficult turned out to be a real challenge at every turn, but it was finally finished! The booth was loaded into a truck and transported to the new Camden High School from the workshop. Once Brad installed the computer, it was ready to use!

Thank you for checking out this creative interactive project. To learn more about STORY HABITAT please check out the link below, and below that is my studio site. If you know someone who would like my newsletter, please pass it along. Thank you for your support! See you again soon!

Bob Thibeault – Tea Bow Studios