Triptycenes have general applicability for increasing the alignment of fluorescent and dichroic dyes in LC hosts. Dyes contg. varying nos. of triptycenes were synthesized to study the effect of free-vol. alignment of triptycenes on the alignment of dyes. These dyes were designed such that multiple triptycenes could be incorporated and the triptycene-free vol. is coincident to the aspect ratio of the dye, allowing a cooperative effect to increase their overall av. alignment. With increasing triptycene incorporation, a stepwise increase in the alignment parameters of each dye was seen. It was also found that the attachment of one triptycene group has a negligible effect on the optical switching response times of the dyes. This can be a powerful tool for designing dyes with higher alignments for a variety of applications including guest-host reflective LCDs and holog. data storage. [on SciFinder(R)]