Display Device
A display device comprising a plurality of parallelepipeds (4) arranged in a stack, each parallelepiped having a resilient means (11) for urging it from a closed position, in which it lies generally flat, to a fully opened position, the structure being foldable from a first position as which the stack of parallelepipeds are fully open to a second position at which they are fully loaded.
This invention relates to a display device. In particular, but not necessarily, it relates to a device for displaying advertising or promotional material or a point of sale display device.
According to the present invention there is provided a display device comprising a plurality of parallelepipeds arranged in a stack, each parallelepiped having a resilient means for urging it from a closed position, in which it lies generally flat, to a fully opened position, the structure being foldable from a first position at which the stack of parallelepipeds are fully open to a second position at which they are fully folded.
The stack may, but need not necessarily, be mounted upon a base, which may comprise a flat sheet.
The device preferably includes a foldable sheet which is hingedly attached to the base and connected to a face of the stack such that in the first position the sheet is substantially planar and in the second position the sheet is flattened concertina fashion, the sheet bearing a desired image, such as an advertising image, on its main face.
Each parallelepiped preferably includes one or more members, which bear at least part of the resilient means, and define the fully opened position. This may be one or more diagonally disposed members fixed to the junction between one adjacent pair of panels of the parallelepiped and adapted to impinge towards the diametrically opposite junction when the parallelepiped is fully opened.
Each parallelepiped may alternatively be formed of two bodies.
In a preferred embodiment, each of these is formed of a single elongate sheet having end portions which extend towards each other when the sheet is folded and between which the resilient means extend, so that when the end portions abut, the body forms a right-angled triangle, or other desired shape, in cross-section.
The second body is inverted and its respective end portions affixed (eg by rivets) to the respective other end portions of the first body.
The resilient means is preferably one or more elastic bands or similar, located appropriately.
Preferably, one of the end portions includes a tongue which extends through a slot in the end portions of the other body and abuts the end of the slot when the bodies are fully closed.
In a preferred embodiment, there are five parallelepipeds.
According to the invention, there is further provided a blank comprising a sheet adapted to form the stack of parallelepipeds as defined above or a series of blanks forming one or more parallelepipeds or bodies.
The structure is preferably at least 50 cm high when erected. It may be over 50 cm high or over 100 cm high.
In one example comprising five parallelepipeds, each parallelepiped has a length of above 21 cm, so the height of the device when fully erected is about 105 cm.
In a further aspect, the invention comprises a display device comprising any one or more of the novel features or combination of features disclosed herein.
An embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
The following description is of a display device. The invention is, of course, not limited to a display device structure.
Referring to
The view shown is intended to be a rear view in practice, and the other side (the front side) of sheet 2 will bear a decorative feature such as an advertising image, picture and may be cut to suitable shape as desired (ie need not be rectangular). This will form the display element of the device, in which case the stack 4 forms the support structure. If sheet 2 is omitted, the picture or other material can be affixed onto the rear faces of the parallelepiped stack. Many methods of affixing an image to a sheet, or of cutting a sheet to a particular shape, are well known. In one example, the picture or image and/or shape may be of a bottle, bearing a particular branding, for example.
The parallelepiped stack comprises, in this embodiment, five parallelepipeds 4a to 4e, stacked one on top of the other.
As shown, the band passes along the junction of plane 5 and plane 8. Thus, if a downwards force is applied to plane 8, as shown in
Alternatively, the resilient means (such as elastic bands) may be otherwise located or disposed on the diagonal portions to achieve the same resilient erecting effect. The diagonal portion need not have the indents. They may be provided with through holes in any desired location, or other means for providing location for elastic bands or other resilient means.
Referring briefly back to
In use, the structure is folded concertina fashion, as shown in
As will be appreciated, more or less than five, for example two, parallelepipeds may be used and these may be of any suitable size, dependent upon, inter alia, the size of envelope. The height of one embodiment, up to the top of sheet 2 is, as described, about 100 cm but any other height may be constructed. For example, a fold up ‘bottle’ shape may be made which fits into a storage pouch but extends to form an erect display.
Although each of the parallelepipeds may be separate, it is preferred to form the entire stack from one blank.
To assemble the blank, it is first cut along each column along the solid line, leaving the dot-dashed vertical lines l2 uncut. Dabs of glue or other adhesive material are then applied to the four positions indicated by hatching 13. Subsequently, starting from the right hand side of the figure, the right most column is folded upon itself to produce a parallelepiped structure having four panels forming a parallelogram in cross-section and a diagonal member formed by the end most portions of the column being laid superimposed and adjacent one another. The entire parallelepiped structure is then hingedly folded at line 12 and glued by means of adhesive 13 to the next column. This next column is then folded upon itself to form a second parallelepid, which is again hinged at the next crease line 12 and adhered. This process is repeated for each column in turn until the final structure is obtained, which will be a stack of parallelepipeds as shown in
Also within portion 68 is a through slot 74 forming a rectangular cut-out. The width W of this is equal to or slightly greater than the width W of the part of tongue 71 which is attached to the remainder of part 68 but is usually, but not necessarily, less than the total width of each tongue. In use, the tongue 71a of one of the two bodies 60 and 61 shown in
Each part also includes a number of holes 75 for riveting (otherwise affixing) adjacent components together.
In use each of the bodies such as 60 and 61 are folded about the hinge lines L1, L2 and L3 as shown in
As is shown in
After this, the notch 67 of one body will be generally in register with notch 70 of the other body, and vice versa. Elastic bands are then applied between each registered pair of notches and the other notches on the same side, as is shown possibly more clearly in
The diagonal members in this case are therefore formed from two layers each diagonal is formed from two ends of a body which move towards each other until their ends abut to form a strong diagonal cross member. The tongues and slots in which they extend provide for what will be repeatable and strong automatic erection under the resilient force of the elastic bands and which can resist shear and lateral movements. Other tongue/channel configurations may be used. In other embodiments, the tongues/channels may be omitted. Each parallelepiped structure can, when it is not required to be erect, simply be folded by pressure at corners L2, bringing these corners towards each other and drawing each respective end 65, 68 of each sheet away from each other in a diagonal direction to achieve a folded disposition as in the first embodiment.
Although two embodiments have been shown and described, note that many other embodiments and variations are encompassed by the invention.
Claims
1. A display device comprising a plurality of parallelepipeds arranged in a stack, each parallelepiped having a resilient means for urging it from a closed position, in which it lies generally flat, to a fully opened position, the structure being foldable from a first position at which the stack of parallelepipeds are fully open to a second position at which they are fully folded.
2. A device as claimed in claim 1, including a foldable sheet which is connected to a face of the stack such that in the first position the sheet is substantially planar and in the second position the sheet is flattened concertina fashion, the sheet bearing a desired image, such as an advertising image, on its main face.
3. A device as claimed in claim 2, wherein the foldable sheet is hingably attached to a base upon which the stack lies.
4. A device a claimed in claim 1, including one or more members, which bear at least part of the resilient means, and define the fully opened position.
5. A device as claimed in claim 4, wherein the members comprise one or more diagonally disposed members fixed to a junction between one adjacent pair of panels of the parallelepiped and adapted to impinge towards the diametrically opposite junction when the parallelepiped is fully opened.
6. A device as claimed in claim 4, wherein the members comprise one or more layers of diagonally disposed members, the ends of pairs of which members are brought towards each under the action of resilient means.
7. A device as claimed in claim 6, wherein each diagonal layer includes a longitudinal slot in which slides a tongue part of a respective second diagonal layer which slides relative to the first layer.
Type: Application
Filed: Nov 21, 2003
Publication Date: Mar 6, 2008
Inventor: Marc Cox (Great Brickhill)
Application Number: 10/566,919