An LED screen for a shop front can be the shop front itself. At the Hour Passion store in Gatwick North Terminal, Dynamo built the UK’s first structural LED shop front: a 3 mm pitch LED arch, 6.7 m wide and 3.9 m tall, that frames the entrance, wraps the returns and plays bespoke content from a 4K player.
Updated September 2026: rewritten with a project summary, the build detail behind the arch and returns, shop-front specification guidance and an FAQ. Project facts are from the 2016 install.
Project summary
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Client | Hour Passion, the multi-brand watch boutique owned by the Swatch Group |
| Location | Airside, North Terminal, London Gatwick Airport |
| Completed | 2016 |
| What Dynamo did | Designed, manufactured and installed the structural LED video wall, including the right-angle corner modules |
| Display | 3 mm pixel pitch LED arch, 6.7 m wide × 3.9 m tall, with returns wrapping the entrance |
| Content | Bespoke creative by Admemori, played from a 4K media player at a custom canvas of 2240 × 1313 pixels |
| Why it mattered | Two other LED integrators had declined the job over the technical requirements |
Why a structural LED shop front instead of a screen in the window
Most retail LED work puts a screen behind glass or on a wall inside the store. Hour Passion wanted the LED to be the architecture: the arch that passengers walk through, not a display they walk past. That changes the engineering. The LED has to carry its own structure, turn a clean corner onto the returns, and read as one continuous surface from the departure lounge seating.
Admemori, a design studio that specialises in physical retail digital experiences, came up with the arch concept, its architectural design and the artistic content strategy. Dynamo’s job was to make it buildable. The project came to us after two other LED integrators had reservations about meeting the technical requirements, which is a fair summary of why structural LED is rarer than window LED.
The build: a 3 mm LED arch with right-angle returns
The arch spans 6.7 m and stands 3.9 m tall. A 3 mm pixel pitch was chosen because passengers see the shop front from a few metres away in the departure lounge and then walk right up to it, so the image had to hold together at both distances without the cost of a fine-pitch product across the whole surface.
Dynamo designed and manufactured the structural LED video wall and built it module by module on site, the method we use for bespoke shapes where standard rectangular cabinets would leave gaps or visible joins. Building at module level is slower than hanging cabinets, but it is what allows an LED surface to follow an architectural line rather than a grid.
Corners without seams
The return sections are the hard part of any wrap-around LED. Standard modules meet at a corner with a visible gap, a dead strip, or a mismatch in pixel spacing. Dynamo manufactured right-angle modules in-house so the LED turns the corner with the pixel pitch maintained across the join. On the finished arch the content runs round the corner without a break, which is what the creative was written to exploit.
Content at a custom canvas
The content is delivered from a 4K media player at a custom canvas of 2240 × 1313 pixels, mapped across the arch and returns. Admemori produced the creative, from the starfield and brand idents to watch imagery on the returns, so that the shape of the display and the content were designed together rather than a video being stretched onto an unusual shape afterwards. That pairing is the difference between a structural LED shop front that looks intentional and one that looks like a screen bent round a doorway.
Working airside at Gatwick North Terminal
Airside retail work means every person, tool and panel passes through security screening, and the build windows are set by the terminal, not the store. A module-by-module build suits that environment because the parts are small enough to move through screening and the work can be paused and resumed cleanly between windows.
The finished Hour Passion concept store sits in the departure lounge, and the LED arch became a spectacle in its own right, with passengers stopping to photograph and film the shop front before going in. For a retailer competing for attention in an airport, that is the outcome the display was specified to deliver.
Specifying an LED screen for your shop front
Most shop-front LED does not need to be structural. The questions are the same either way. How far away is the customer when they first see it, and how close do they get? A high-street or shopping-centre frontage viewed from three to ten metres works at 2.5 mm to 3.9 mm; a window display customers press up against needs finer. How bright is the surrounding lighting? Airport and mall lighting is strong, so indoor panels rated at 800 nits or more are the normal starting point, and a window facing daylight needs high-brightness product. What is behind the LED? A structural arch needs its own frame and load path; a screen in a window needs a wall or floor mount and ventilation.
Our guide to window advertising with LED screens covers the window case in detail, and two more retail examples show the range: the Canada Goose LED window displays and the Pretty Green window screens in London and Liverpool. For a shaped or wrap-around build, our bespoke LED design and engineering walkthrough explains how a project like Hour Passion is taken from concept to install. The full fixed-install range is on our LED display products page.
LED Screen for Shop Front: Frequently Asked Questions
What is a structural LED shop front?
A shop front where the LED display is part of the building structure rather than a screen fixed to it. At Hour Passion the LED forms the arch around the entrance and wraps onto the returns on either side, so the display carries its own frame and defines the shape of the frontage. It is engineered as architecture first and a screen second.
What pixel pitch should a shop front LED screen use?
Match it to how close customers get. A frontage seen from three to ten metres works well at 2.5 mm to 3.9 mm, which is why the Hour Passion arch uses 3 mm. A window display that shoppers stand right in front of needs a finer pitch, typically 1.5 mm to 2.5 mm. Going finer than the viewing distance requires adds cost without adding visible detail.
How big is the Hour Passion LED shop front at Gatwick?
The arch is 6.7 m wide and 3.9 m tall, with returns that wrap around the entrance on both sides. Content is played from a 4K media player at a custom canvas of 2240 × 1313 pixels mapped across the whole surface, so one piece of creative runs across the arch and both returns without a break at the corners.
Can an LED screen wrap around a corner without a visible join?
Yes, if the corner is built with purpose-made right-angle modules rather than two flat panels butted together. Dynamo manufactured the right-angle modules for Hour Passion in-house so the pixel pitch is maintained through the corner and the content turns the return cleanly. Butting standard cabinets together leaves a gap or a dead strip that the content cannot cross.
Who designed the content for the Hour Passion LED arch?
Admemori, a design studio specialising in physical retail digital experiences, created the arch concept, its architectural design and the content strategy. Dynamo engineered, built and installed the LED to that design. Designing the shape and the content together is what makes a shaped display look deliberate; content stretched onto an unusual shape afterwards rarely does.
Can Dynamo build an LED shop front for a high-street store?
Yes. The same approach scales from a single window screen to a full structural frontage. We start from the viewing distances, the ambient light and what is physically behind the frontage, then specify the pitch, brightness and structure to suit. Shaped and wrap-around builds are designed and manufactured by Dynamo, as the Hour Passion arch was.
Get a quote for an LED screen for your shop front. Send us the frontage dimensions, a photo and the viewing distances, and we will come back with a pitch, a layout and a price. Contact Dynamo LED Displays or call 020 3489 9878.
This is one of our bespoke LED display projects — see our full custom and bespoke LED display capability for similar work.
