Design Forum » Retail store design

Q: When is Post Important to Kellogg’s?

Bill Chidley — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:52:21 +0000

A: When I’m shopping at my local Kroger. No, not the “Post” as in Raisin Bran; I’m referring to the physical post, or column, that is in the cereal aisle at my store. The scene is this: my wife asks me to go get the Multi-Grain Cheerios so she can shop in peace for 10 minutes. She says, “Get the big box, unless the smaller box is on sale,” adding, “The Cheerios are close to the post about half-way down the aisle.” If she wouldn’t have given me that navigational pointer, she probably would have bought herself 15 minutes of peace. The merchandise presentation in the cereal aisle is such a mess, so lacking in organization, I could easily have squandered more time, forced to scan every package, not finding what I was looking for. But since she gave me the post as my pole star, I managed to navigate past the lions and tigers and bears to the Cheerios. After a moment of anxiety while I scan the shelf for validation—Ta-dah!—I find the Mutli-Grain big box not on sale! Contrast this with my second mission, during which my wife gets only a few minutes of peace.

What American Designers in Asia Need to Know

Matt — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:25:29 +0000

Stay ahead of rapid expansion Singapore, Seoul, and Mumbai are cutting edge markets and this means high expectations. Going into a project as a designer in these cities is intimidating. Shoppers live in aesthetic cultures where every imaginable design has been popularized. These cities are changing organically. It almost seems instantaneous. Within 3 months of being away from Singapore three new malls have opened. It's all about knowing past/ present memes and looking toward ways of either (1) creating a new twist or (2) breaking the boundaries all together.

Stand out In most cases Western design tends to fit in with its surroundings. Success in Asia is all about being bold. Whether it be a silly chewing gum commercial or neon signage that puts Times Square to shame, there is always something screaming for your attention. When you consider how busy people are in cities like Beijing and Tokyo, getting someone's attention takes a strong effort. In my opinion, the solution to this is a simple design that allows for a detox from all the noise.

For Better or Worse, Environment Influences Choice

Becca Robinett — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 13:04:50 +0000

While I was listening to WNYC Radiolab the other day I came across an interesting episode centered on choice and decision making influencers. Being a designer, I am always searching for new ideas and concepts to weave into my work, so I clicked on the link. In an hour the host took me through a whirlwind of studies examining the variations of why we choose the way we do and what factors can influence our decisions. And what does it all boil down too? Stress has a tremendous affect on our ability to make appropriate selection. To quote my mother, this over-simplified answer is an "astute observation of the obvious." However, when broken apart, the program's individual experiments struck me as simple learning blocks that could easily be applied to a retail environment. Basically, if a person is over-stimulated in an environment a simple decision of what apple to buy can become ridiculously hard because there is too much information for them to just make a choice. They start to tune out their fast moving intuition to make a more educated selection on an item that they could really care less about. In the end, those who were over-stimulated tend to be disappointed.

Why you Need to be Tougher than a Building Inspector

Glenn — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:39:28 +0000

So I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Sacramento CA waiting to meet with the city planner regarding a new building design and notice the building across the street has an HVAC unit mounted at the peak of a bowstring truss roof. You've got to be kidding me! As they say on "Modern Family," What the face! Where is the enforcement?

You would think they were trying to make a mechanical engineering cupola statement as part of the design concept or something. Wow, who does that and what city planner or inspector approved that? As design professionals, we go through great pains to design buildings that screen ugly mechanical equipment to improve the look of the street scape at every juncture.

Retailers Need to Think Like Revolutionaries

Scott Jeffrey — Fri, 21 May 2010 21:32:49 +0000

There wasn't an Evolutionary War for a reason. In the pre-dawn of U.S. history, the new settlers wanted more than to just evolve the British rule, it had to be overthrown. A new start, a clean slate. Imagine the pressure that those founding fathers must have felt when deciding that enough was enough, let's try something new. Today, many brands find themselves in the same place. The status quo isn't working. It’s time to differentiate. But I wonder if the ideas of "revolution" and "evolution" aren't being confused.

The Value of Brands

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:29:45 +0000

Design Forum has changed its name… sort of. When we became part of Interbrand in 2002, we kept the name of the company that I founded in 1978. Since then, we’ve evolved from a pure design entity into a multi-disciplined consultancy with a deep pool of talent, including a lot of brand expertise. “Design Forum” contains valuable