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INSIGHTS: A DISCUSSION ABOUT “PUBLIC SPACE” DESIGN
Gaddis Architect specializes in all phases of commercial and commercial retail design, design management and construction. If maximizing the success of your business by optimizing the performance of your store, or commercial space design is a goal, then attending the following “Insights” could provide some very real benefits. Many common, and some not so common, design challenges are analyzed. Solutions aimed at increasing retail traffic, creating visual presence in various environments, and expressing not only a particular shopping experience but also the business’s brand, are presented. We think that all design is, on some level at least, retail design. Please scroll on, start a dialogue, contact us anytime.
Crossing Over the Line of Confusion
This is an instructive exercise on two levels. First lets consider the impact of merchandise placement in the black and white photo. It is quickly apparent that the main show, directly in the line of view as a customer enters or passes by the store, is an indecipherable patch work which says little about the products being sold. Also, there is actually some secondary “visual cognition”going on as our eye looks for clarity and finds it in the higher contrast which appears on the side walls where individual items or groups of items have been carefully framed by the surrounding architecture. This can be an effective technique when used in the right location; nevertheless assigning center stage to a confusion of merchandise is risky and could easily send customers searching for more understandable views in an adjacent store.
There is more to this particular story though as the second lesson is about what happens when highly saturated color is added to the mix. Suddenly what was a wall of confused merchandise becomes a high visibility focal point standing out in and being framed framed by the mid-tone world. Now the wall of merchandise has attracted attention sufficient to cross over the line of confusion and land squarely on the side of interest. Very interesting indeed.
The suggestive power of real display merchandising.
Is it time for a return to old fashioned department store display merchandising? The allure of Heal’s colorful spring program is undeniable, fresh, maybe a new view of bygone expos? The color is expertly used to glue the entire program together so it reads as a single presentation. The green and yellow makes an artful appearance at some point in articles of every scale. It weaves its way through store wide displays, leading the shopper from macro to micro, to more micro images until the shopper finds himself standing in the store.
Have the grey walls of big box stores left us starved for such a visually stimulating shopping experience? Have rows of tiny “New Urbanist” specialty shops, or independent mall store fronts left a patchwork where once there was real visual impact? Have we forgotten about the suggestive power of real display merchandising? Probably.
Approaching After
BEFORE
AFTER
- This is one of my projects in an almost finished condition. The storefront display is not yet in and there is still a blade sign and interior work to complete. In a few weeks you will find the completed project in the portfolio menu above.
- I have posted it because there is an important lesson here in time allocation. If you are a start-up retailer reading this post, ask yourself how long you think it took to go from the before photo to the after? Recently, I had an inquiry from a person opening their first specialty retail store. They had done a great deal of preliminary work. There was a business plan in place, financing, a connection with an important supplier, and even an up and running website complete with e-commerce. I am always surprised to see a new business this far into a project without understanding how much time is actually required to negotiate a lease and then design and build a real bricks and mortar store. I was unable to accommodate this fun and potentially successful project because the business owner contacted me in August intending to be open by Thanksgiving in time for the holiday season market.
- We started to design the project in the photo in November of 2012. There was a soft opening in August 2013 but the project was not actually complete with all graphics and displays installed until November 2013. I recommend that a new retailer start to design and plan their store a year in advance of their grand opening. This means that work on the business plan and the prototype store design should begin on the same day.
- So why does it take so long? The answer to this is really the subject of an additional post. It is not, though, normally the design time that delays a project. The most common delays have to do with choosing a location, lead times on products, and building permits.