Revamping an Iconic Brand

The doors to the newly revamped PUMA on Carnaby Street opened on Friday, March 23rd. The PUMA brand embodies an active and healthy lifestyle. With a new active, innovative, and sustainable design to the retail environment. The store offers PUMA's performance lifestyle collections with cutting-edge technology to their customers. PUMA's strategy to revamp their stores to appeal to their customers in key markets (including Amsterdam, Munich, Barcelona and New York). Londoners will find some iconic London emblems given a PUMA twist.

The store is about 2,500 sq ft of open retail space showcasing the broad range of PUMA footwear displayed on their "catwalk" of shoes, from the iconic PUMA Suede to the PUMA Speed Cat.

Shopping is meant to be a fun experience. No one wants to have a boring shopping experience. The store has their own unique interactive features. The new PUMA Joypad is 32 synchronized digital touch screens, which allows customers to test their memory and reaction time on regularly updated games. Customers can challenge their friends to get the top score.

The changing rooms have a feature called the PUMA Peepshow. It is a red box that opens with a surprise video inside. "You never know who may be checking you out while you try on some new PUMA gear." Is that a phone ringing? Maybe you should answer it. Who's there? It's the PUMA "UnSmart Phone" and see who is on the other line. They could be calling to speak with you.

The ceiling tends to be the forgotten fifth wall. Not at the PUMA store. Look up and see the various floating images in their digital skylight. You could find yourself relaxing in the clouds or in the midst of a group of hungry sharks!

PUMA is making the shopping experience easier. There are iPads in the store to let their customers purchase products directly from PUMA's European e-commerce website. Now customers do not have to worry about not getting the color or size they want. Shopping directly through the website also lightens the customer's load. They will not be weighed down buy shopping bags. 

The Carnaby Street is a reflection of its surrounding location. From the "Mind the Gap" text on the front of the entrance ramps to the iconic red telephone boxes in the storefront facade. Customers will enjoy being in the midst of all that London has to offer.

"In line with PUMA's mission to become the most desirable and sustainable Sportlifestyle company, the new store, which was first opened in 2002, incorporates several sustainable features. Sustainable innovations include an efficient lighting concept mix resulting in reduced energy consumption, FSC certified wood and certified floor finishes guaranteeing the forest products used are from responsibly harvested and verified sources, and low-emission paint and adhesives. The structure of the existing walls [have] been left [untouched], reducing the amount of building material [waste]. These measures support PUMA's sustainability targets for 2015 and help protect our planet."

Digital Age: A New Type of Presentation

Portfolios are constantly evolving. The Morpholio Project was founded in 2011, by a group of architects and academics.They came together to research ways in which the proliferation of the device culture, the  development of the cloud, and the ubiquity of social networking, which shape the creative process.

Morpholio now seeks to create a new platform for presentation, dialogue, and collaboration relevant to all designers, artists and members of any image driven culture. Our interest is in advancing the ways that we discuss, debate, and critique our work with a global community. The mission is to explore ways of harnessing thoughtful feedback about a set of ideas, and to enable members to easily convene meaningful discussion around their work in new kinds of public and private forums. 

The project has an Advisory Council of 200 design professionals and artists from various disciplines. It draws representation from a wide range of studios, and universities worldwide including both students and professors from Columbia, Harvard, London’s Architectural Association, MIT, Princeton, and the School of Visual Arts. 

Check out their website here and these videos:

Technology Ever Changing

In today's times technology is ever changing. Have you ever thought about a better way to grocery shop? If your really think about it, isn't inefficient for grocery stores to store their products in several different locations? The stores would be able to save money, energy, and space by housing everything in a central location. If this was made into a reality, the question still remains of how to make the product accessible to the consumer.

The world's first ever virtual grocery store opened in Korea last summer. The consumer can see the items on the shelves as if they were in the grocery store. If an item where to catch the consumer's eye they would not grab the item off the shelf. If they wanted to purchase it, they would simply scan the barcode with their smartphone. After the item has been scanned it is placed into the virtual shopping cart (online shopping cart). Done shopping? Pay for your items and they are shipped promptly to your door. Not planning on going straight home? The consumer is able to schedule  when they would like their items delivered. If the consumer has previously purchased an item they simply order it again without have to physical be in the virtual store.

Let's hope that the virtual grocery stores come to the states. Just think you would not have to worry about standing in lines, no more price checks, no more pushing a cart with a squeaky wheel, loading and unloading the car, and no more worrying about shopping carts denting your vehicle. New York would be a great place to test the success of the stores.

Save the Date

Calling all students!

Are you interested in showcasing your work to industry professionals? nextGEN is proud to be hosting its second annual student competition. The competition will be May 31, 2012.  So mark your calendars! The competition is open to ALL interior design students currently attending an accredited design program. If you didn't have a chance to compete last year May 31st is your chance!

Last year's competition was a great success! If you would like to read about last year's competition, you can check out our publication on Issuu. There are also some posts about last year's competition here, here, here and here.

We will be posting more information about the competition, so please keep checking back.

Behind-the-Scenes of Lamb & Flag

Thursday night, members and friends of the Retail Design Institute came together to get a behind-the-scenes tour at the new Lamb & Flag fashion apparel concept from Kellwood brands. Gray Winston, Vice President of Kellwood Brands, spoke of the brand’s inception and how it was translated from a concept into the bricks and mortar environment. The event was attended by key retailers, designers, consultants, and suppliers. Aside from  great entertainment and networking opportunities, the event was a great opportunity to learn more about the brand.

“The most important thing was to create 4 main filters for all design - product, marketings, smell, sound, music through to the store design...everything  you see in very intentional” Gary continued in his presentation to the group.

1. Age - While this proof-of-concept is proving to appeal to a much broader demographic, their core target is age 18-24 college graduates.
2. Style - Referred to as ‘Casual Beauty with an Edge’ demonstrated through a meticulous attention to detail. “We would spend time on 10 tiny things but the customer might only notice 1 of those, so in the store we had to create over 100 to ensure this comes across sufficiently, yet subtly enough for the customer to take away with them”. A tour of the store highlighted this wherever you looked and even areas you couldn’t see. A restroom in the back of house area includes their logo spelt out in the floor where only ‘brand reps’ would see it. On the customer facing side, wood floors are recycled from an old military base - a concrete infill plugging the cracks - delivering a unique experience in the dressing rooms where again the branding is featured on the floor, with multiple lighting effects that can be controlled by the shopper while streaming multi media on the embedded screens. 
3. Aesthetic - This speaks to the store design’s 'Wrecked Elegance’ which could be seen in their use of beautiful wallpaper that's been ripped and torn, or the beautiful chandelier that's slightly aged, through to rough plaster walls that show water stains. It’s something ‘Beautiful with a Twist' referred to as ‘perfect imperfection!’
4. Emotional - The most important differentiator to the store design team. “It’s not as tangible as the others but equally important to the experience. The smell, the way the ‘brand reps’ interact with you, the complimentary bracelet or box of water offered when you're in the dressing room... a lot of our time was spent defining what the emotion filters should be” continued Winston. “The brand menu on the front of store defines 'beautiful' in our eyes, the beauty of not conforming.”

To read more about the event click here.

A Social Event @ Lamb & Flag

Join us for a behind-the-scenes tour of the new Lamb & Flag fashion apparel concept from Kellwood brands. Attendees will gain insights to the retail strategy, design and implementation process that delivered this brand new concept to the market place. Expect an evening of education, entertainment and an opportunity to network. Light refreshments and hors d'oeuvres will be served.

Limited Tickets by RSVP only so book now!

RDI attendees will receive a 10% discount to shop that night and a $50 gift certificate will be given away.

Sponsored by:
Lamb and Flag, Retail Design Institute and Infuse Ideas.

One Launch, Two Nights, Two Cities: First City Recap

Previously posted here, last night was the first night of the launch of the Retail Design Institute's new website. The event was held at Nadel Architects in Los Angeles. The Retail Design Institute's website has been given a make-over. The website is now easier to navigate. The attendees got a first hand experience on how to use the new features on the website.

Please check out the Retail Design Institute's new and improved website!

There is still one more city, we hope to see you there!

Please join us again tonight at Little in Costa Mesa, California. We hope to see you tonight! See the information below for tonight's location:

02/16/12 (Thursday) 

Location: Little Architects Orange County

1901 Newport Blvd, Suite 300, 

Costa Mesa, California 92627

Time: 6pm Light Refreshments; 6.30-8pm Demo & 'Town Hall' Discussion; 8.30pm Finish ; Join us afterwards @ The Yard House, Triangle Square Shopping Center, 1875 Newport Blvd, Costa Mesa, CA www.yardhouse.com for those interested.

Sponsors: Little Diversified Architectural Consulting. 

Fee: Free to Members & Non-Members. Limited to 40 people by RSVP only.

Click here to RSVP via Facebook for the Costa Mesa location 

Parking & Access: Parking to front of building or around to rear in parking structure. Entry through courtyard at front or rear and take elevator to Level 3.