Highly visible illuminated graphics are used to attract night time shoppers.

Colorful Louis Viutton logo graphic attracts daytime shoppers.

Bold high contrast graphic is suggestive as a design direction for a new sunglasses retailer.

Graphics have been a standard marketing tool since at least the invention of the printing press and possibly before.  They are required on some level for virtually every retail establishment.  From the pervasive plastic shopping bags, to merchandise tags, to beautiful and even collectible packaging, to actual patterns on a product, nothing escapes a logo-centric imprint, until today we see a new hieroglyphic language easily read by sophisticated and status conscious shoppers.  Most of the famous logos have evolved along with the brand from small printed images and product labels into electronic Times Square size mega billboards, adding a whole new dynamic to storefront design, especially in the small products market.

From the standpoint of storefront design the concept is fairly simple.  Bold high contrast images are highly visible in the drive and walk by field of vision, clearly demonstrating why I was stopped short by the strength of these glasses clad masked figures and leading me to yet another post on the subject of sunglasses.  Associate the image with a product and marketing campaign, not necessarily in that order, and you have a complete message.  These days start up businesses have an opportunity to skip the evolution and might well be advised to jump right into the complete message.  This means defining a design strategy and visual identity from the get go.

All images used under Creative Commons.