I was thinking about bowling. Thinking about it, thinking about how awesome bowling alleys are, how the environment is quite the uniqueness in our society. Thinking about lanes. Thinking about the carpeting. Thinking about balls. And then I came to it. The screens! Look at them! They’re designed to work, to be understood, and to facilitate you having fun while you’re playing about the most thunderous rolling sport of our times. But by god, I’ve never seen two the same. Where we’re in a world where so many things come standard: pop machines, cars, newspaper dispensers, this program run by thousands of alleys is different in each of them. And the container on each has it’s own charm as well.

This situation reminds me of a cardinal lesson in economics: if two grocery stores have bread, but one has the bread priced 25¢ higher, you’ll still go to the other store because it’s closer by. While there might be a brand-name bowling system out there that would be universally easier to understand, it doesn’t matter because there’s no big demand for that kind of system from the bowlers. One bowler does not go to all sorts of different alleys asking for the same system enough for any alley to switch from the one that was originally most convenient for them.

Thus, this! Hundreds if not thousands of different setups and systems.

Now there might be some bowling systems out there trying to dominate the market, and good luck to them! But bowling is and always has been a sport that’s basically just for the love of it – there is no gigantic market or popular sporting event for it, thus happy mediocrity.

And thus the uniqueness of each alley.

Now behold these screens.

The following images are from the following contributors: nertzy, Jos, Abs44, Karen D, V&N, 2H Design, Adele, Razif H, Drew Makepeace, notMargaret, Lergik, Xiaming, Lucaskt, Miahz, Kevin H, Philipreid, Kirkala, Rick Spine, Mrs. Chardonnay, Real Blades, Ivan Tortuga, B Mune, Arksiel, Project BS, Orac808, Hupthur, Davers, Light Star Angel, Danny Huff, Alan Rappa, Optimum Inline, Primamag, Quiet Dangst, Moon Cowboy, Heather & Tom, Kenoir, Mika, Espelina, Elizabeth PS, Eats Dirt, buck82, idolector, Mr. Wright, Ben Sutherland, Joshua Mauldin, Jima, RonyyG, Kus Kus, nonKompliant, Jared Zimmerman, SGT Fun, Scuddr, Scotticus, Ryan W, Series Premiere, eatdog888, funnyliberal, Abby T, Love it Madly, TheNotQuiteFool, Carolina P, KingBeej, Cash and Carrie, Ariel Waldman, Geeky Artist Librarian, Kooop, Brian Bruchman, DarrenXYZ, Jannygirl, Andrastia, Little Dynamite, AbbyLadybug, Espelina, Dan 4th, Ario, PocketDora, Vicious Bits, Jaybert, Mixed Feelings, Skonen Blades, Girl of Bats, Lia, Sarah and Jason, and CindyLi.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies environment category.

  • http://www.cowieandfox.com/blog/2010/05/bowling-design-uber-nerdy/ Cowie and Fox » Blog Archive » Bowling Design: Über nerdy?

    [...] Check out this large collection of bowling score screens i’ve discovered. Click the image below to see the full collection. [...]

  • http://designisgopdx.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/bowling-screens/ Bowling Screens « DESIGN is GO blog

    [...] via worldfamousdesignjunkies [...]

  • http://www.avclub.us/2010/05/12/a-collection/ A collection « avclub.us

    [...] Further proof that a large grouping of just about anything can become a collection. I give you… 100 different bowling screens. [...]

  • http://twitter.com/paul_mar/statuses/13928772650 paul_mar (Paul Martino)

    100 various bowling alley scoreboards: http://bit.ly/ckgdVJ Absolutely amazing!

  • http://thegraffik.co.cc/collection-of-bowling-alley-scoreboards.htm Collection of Bowling Alley Scoreboards at thegraffik | Design and Illustration

    [...] and uniformness, there seem to exist just a few that look the same. Hence, the blog post "1,000 Screens, 1,000 Dreams" [worldfamousdesignjunkies.com] has collected a huge amount of bowling scoreboard images, [...]

  • http://twitter.com/rafael_longo/statuses/13929764894 rafael_longo (Rafael Longo)

    1000 telas de score de boliche: http://worldfamousdesignjunkies.com/bad-taste/1000-screens-1000-dreams/ muito massa! até deu vontade!

  • http://twitter.com/steveleathers/statuses/13930131390 steveleathers (steve leathers)

    World Famous Design Junkies present a compilation of electronic bowling screens. Beautiful. http://bit.ly/ckgdVJ #bowling #informationdesign

  • http://twitter.com/simonbushking/statuses/13935133133 simonbushking (Simon Bush-King)

    http://worldfamousdesignjunkies.com/bad-taste/1000-screens-1000-dreams/
    this is great, 1000 photographs of bowling ally scoring computers..

  • http://twitter.com/nbqx/statuses/13943483128 nbqx (nbqx)

    ボウリングのスコア画面集.http://worldfamousdesignjunkies.com/bad-taste/1000-screens-1000-dreams/

  • http://twitter.com/nuca_ata/statuses/13953201657 nuca_ata (nuca.ata)

    RT @nbqx: ボウリングのスコア画面集.http://worldfamousdesignjunkies.com/bad-taste/1000-screens-1000-dreams/

  • http://twitter.com/bubblerose29/statuses/14214228035 bubblerose29 (T)

    For bowling lovers: http://tinyurl.com/38ahg2o (via @brainpicker )

  • http://extrafuture.com/2010/05/26/a-collection-of-bowling-alley-scoreboards/ A Collection of Bowling Alley Scoreboards | Extra Future

    [...] I can smell the shoe-refresher and Miller Lite from here. Smells like home. [...]

  • http://www.doobybrain.com/2010/05/28/gallery-of-bowling-alley-score-screens/ Gallery of bowling alley score screens on Doobybrain.com

    [...] World Famous Design Junkies has a great post and gallery of various bowling lane screens displaying the scores for the game in play. There’s something about the old and vintage looking score screens that make me love bowling alleys. It’s strictly informational and at times they don’t even care that it doesn’t look that great. Forget the decorative flares, if the score is being shown, that’s all that matters. Share this on TechnoratiStumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponShare this on RedditShare this on MixxDigg this!Share this on del.icio.usShare this on FacebookTweet This!Submit this to DesignFloat Permalink Comments (0) Tags: alley, bowling, lanes, scores, screens Similar Posts on Doobybrain.com:Demo video of Lenovo ThinkPad multitouch screens [...]

  • http://www.nerdcore.de/wp/2010/05/29/links-for-2010-05-28/ links for 2010-05-28 – Nerdcore

    [...] 1,000 Screens, 1,000 Dreams (tags: Bowling Design sports) [...]

  • http://visualdatasec.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/endless-possibilities/ Endless possibilities « Visual Security

    [...] Comments How many different user interfaces can you create for something completely banal? Read 1,000 Screens, 1,000 Dreams over on World Famous Design Junkies to see how something as simple and commonplace as scorekeeping [...]

  • http://neonlite.ca/funny-stuff/got-rollback “Got Rollback?”

    [...] Bowling alley screens. [...]

  • http://zombo.com Stinky P.

    Judging by the scores, you / your friends are pretty lousy bowlers…


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