Project _1_HandM

When doing the evaluation of H&M in the Stonestown Mall, it was overwhelming how big the space was compared to the likes of Apple where they have a solid rectangular foundation. H&M has a very dimensional layout which was good to see in person because Jack Adams Hall shares similarities. It was nice and abstract, however, I feel the layout was sporadic at times and could've used some work. But I did like how the store was flooded with merchandise almost intentionally to make the customer walk to every spot in the store so they didn't miss anything.

Stonestown: Bath & Body Works layout

Project 1

The store that my group was assigned to was Zumiez. Zumiez currently caters to teenagers and young adults offering gear and clothing for the skater, snowboarder, and surfer enthusiasts. The store is the shape of a rectangle. It is long and narrow. It has a lot of clothing racks and boxes everywhere which makes the store a little too cluttered. This "clutterness" made it difficult to walk around. Overall, Zumiez is a chill store and has a lot to show. I think they had a good amount of hanging techniques that we may find useful. 

Project 1

H&M

This is my general sketch for the layout of the H&M store at Stonestown. It was a bit intimidating at first because of the shape of the store is very different from other ones. I never thought about how interesting their layout was. I did my best to get all the angles. I think this can help us understand the space at Jack Adams Hall because it is also a strangely shaped area. I only drew out the main part of the store. There is an additional "young adult" section on the left side of the store, but it was similar to the main part so I didn't draw it.


The most interesting part of the store to me was the central lighting board in the middle of the main part of the store. It was hung a bit lower than the ceiling, and it has various moveable lights built inside it. They hung metal clothing racks from this and focused the lights on the clothing or mannequins that were underneath it. I thought this was a simple yet visually interesting way to display their clothing.


They had these metal tables throughout the store that were places in various configurations (sort of like Tetris style) to put clothing on. These seemed like an easy and practical way to display items that people might want to walk around.

Here are some pictures I took with my cell phone before the manager yelled at us:



I have always liked H&M because of how industrial and modern their stores look. All their displays are very angular, even their mannequins. They only have a black, grey, white, and metallic color pallette and they stick with it all year round. It displays the clothing very well and it is always undoubtedly H&M. I have been to various other H&M's around the US and in Europe, and they all keep the same look. Most stores in Europe look like this, but it looks different when it is in a US setting. It gives the shopper a feeling of shopping in a hip European store.

J crew store Stonestown

Hey guys, Here's the updated version of the Stonestown project 1 sketch I have been working on. To recap, the store is organized into two parts: female and male section. Both entry doors, gave access to these two sections. These two categories have their own respective work space with one shop representative ready to assist their clients. Everything in between the store ranges from secondary products such as sunglasses, bags to makeup.



My first observation looked at the store windows, which did not cover the entire surface of the outside walls. Approximately 1/4 of the outside periphery of the shop is blue painted and shows no inside view, except for the main J-Crew logo.








There is only one entrance that consists of two doors. The doors open out and stay automatically set in that direction. The entrance is located no more than 10 meters from two escalators (making the connection to the first floor). The escalators are set perpendicular to the doors. The client has to make a 90 degree turn to enter it, which is nice and convenient.



The lighting is set in three categories on the ceiling; the female section with approximately 20 lights on each end of its given 100 square foot area and about 15 on the male end, on the other side of the store. The middle section was equipped with 10 lights aligned going from the entry doors to the very back of the shop.
The floor was entirely made of clear brown wood (parquet) and seemed well maintained.Unfortunately, pictures inside aren't allowed.

The visual identity seemed reserved, emphasizing more on clothing display and furniture rather than posters graphics or magazines. Depending on what type of students' projects will be displayed at the show, maybe this is something to consider as we're organizing through the theme (...) product design on one site, and graphic on the other.

Project 1 - Nordstroms

For this assignment I decided to go to Nordstroms to see how a huge department store might be organized. I felt that this could help me get ideas on how to lay things out in the relatively large Jack Adams Hall. Though Nordstrom’s aesthetic was obviously dated, I felt that there were a few key successes in their layout. First was the abundant lighting through multiple large glass entrances and one large skylight in the center of the store. I felt this was interesting because, rather than mask the overpowering cavern of the space, the lights served to accentuate its size to the point that it became a much more agreeable “open area”, rather than a “menacing cave”. I am not familiar with the lighting possibilities in Jack Adams Hall, though, so this could be an entirely inapplicable effect for our purposes. The second key success in Nordstroms, and the one probably most essential for our purposes, was the use of clusters to divide the space into bite-sized chunks. That is, the grouping of like objects in an area, which creates a smaller, more graspable space in a larger space. What I found interesting about Nordstrom’s clusters was that no definite boundaries set the clusters apart (walls, etc.), rather boundaries were suggested by the positioning of objects and walkways, and assumed by the mind. Thus, when you entered a cluster, you forgot about the vastness of the rest of the space, and focused only on this new, easily digested space you had just walked in to.

I was unable to very accurately plot out the hugeness of the store, so here’s a very general outline of its layout.

Nordstroms

(Blogger has kindly resized it to illegibility).

Project 1

The trip to Stonestown really helped to see how certain stores lay out their presentation. I went with 3 other students to check out J. Crew. It had a really excellent presentation in the back of the store. The presentation had three manikins in the back that each had an individual spot light on them to highlight it. The main problem was that the focal point was the presentation in the back and it was completely being blocked by the main presentation. The store split up into two sections, the Men’s section and the women’s section.

The Women’s section was very well organized, and had a great amount of flow. There were only a few tables that blocked the paths and had a most of the clothes were aligned along the wall. The section was smaller than then men’s section but the organization was what helped the presentation. The men’s was completely different; it was completely crowded with tables. The layout had some type of flow, but with the limited amount of space it just looked like they were over doing it. They had a nice support beam that helped simulate the division between the men’s and the women’s side. But because of it, they lost a lot of open space. The men’s side had most of their clothes folded, but also had some free hanging sections like the women’s section.

I must say the best part of the design of the layout was also the part that hindered it the most. The middle section which highlighted the clothes of the store forced consumers to either choose the path towards the women’s section or towards the men’s section. This allowed for an easy flow to where you needed to go to. But there were two problems: The main section only showed the women products and took away from the focal point design in the back. Only having women products only catered to one group and automatically kind of makes the other group category loose interest very quick. Then it taking away attention from the focal point of the store also really hurts the place. You should be walking by the store and see the three manikins in the back and think I want to go in there. But instead it looses its look because it was being blocked by the main section.

P1: Stonestown; Lupicia

This is a small and cozy tea shop going for a somewhat upscale, natural visual theme of golden browns, darker browns, grass green and various variations of straw yellow. In some cases they do use real (or perhaps fake) straw and bamboo. The lighting is soft and white, with a halo effect on the edges of the ceiling. The merchandise is lit by about 15 regularly-spaced directional light sources from the very top.

The staff greets the customers just as they come in to the store, near the sample station in an informal discussion area, which I think could be useful for the exhibit. It would be interesting to have semi-curators for the guests pointing out how to best walk through the show.

Project 1: Lupicia Fresh Tea

The store that I sketched a floor plan on was the Lupicia Fresh Tea store. It is a small simple store that had a simple rectangle shape. I simply sketched in the tables that were in the store and there were also small movable table that were for sampling tea. There were also shelves on the wall that were spread out from the front of the entrance to the other side near the back door. The back door was at the opposite side of the front entrance and it was behind the cashier. There were a total of five tables, including the movable tables. The small little table (sales) that was connecting to the wall on the right side of the store was part of the wall that was sticking out of the side. There was a small sample table in front the window on the right side of the store. There are two windows; one on each sides of the front entrance. In front of these windows are steps that were connected from the window to the wooden floors. This store was set up with a big open space in the middle of the store. There is also open space behind the tables and behind the cashier.
I thought this store was mostly successful with the layout of the store because all that open space gives the customers a nice big walkway to see all the different kinds of teas. Also it makes it easy for someone to backup and look at the teas that are shelved up on the walls. The windows are nice and big to show people walking by that this is a colorful and interesting store to go into, even though they may not like tea. The lighting is also a plus in the store because the lighting was really bright and made it really easy to see all the different names of the teas and
colors.
The problematic of the store would have to be the cramped space behind the counters of the employees. Even though the store is towards more for the customers, the employees still needs space to move about and have room to reach high shelves and low shelves. Also the steps in front of the windows don’t really have a reason there.
The aspects of this store could be useful with the lighting that was used in Lupicia Tea’s store. The lighting is really bright and the show could use really bright lights to brighten up the projects and the mood of the people coming inside to look around. I think light is very important when dealing with an exhibit. Open space is also very important because you need to find a way how people will walk in a order of way.

Wilson Chiu : Gap

To create a better understanding of how exhibits work, I think visiting actual store locations and understanding the fundamentals of featuring is a huge factor in our learning process. Out of the many stores to research in Stonestown, I decided to survey Gap, only because no one else is researching it.
The front view of the store features mannequins with different kinds of dressing styles. They were held up by metal poles on square bases and are cast over by lights suspended from the ceiling, creating an illuminated effect. There were also Gap posters behind the mannequins that were held together by thin wires to give a nice clean look. Upon entering the store, we can immediately get a sense of freeness with no restrictions. We can choose to look left or analyze the clothes on the right but above all, the spacing inside the store feels just about right.
The only thing I didn’t like about the store spacing is the side walls. The spacing in these areas tend to be a little bit more packed together with too many things to look at once, thus, causing our eyes to drift away easily. Another hindrance in the store were the pillars, one in the front and one in the back of the store. They are obstacles that could have been used to their advantage but instead they overlook it by only putting a mirror on it.

Project 1/Steve Belale

Before walking into the Gap, the first thing that stood out to me was the window displays, mannequins positioned with a poster behind them featuring the very same pieces of clothing the models wore. I like this form of reinforcement. It pulls you in for a closer look, maybe to find the piece of clothing on the mannequin on the actual poster and vice versa.

The layout of the Gap seems pretty simple and straight forward but taking a closer look reveals several layers of display. Shelves that overlap each other, each layer holding different articles of clothing, wall shelves under wall shelves on top of a hook rack to hang hangers and so forth. The Gap really utilizes the space they have.

Probably the most beneficial method of display is the hanging of the posters. Also, I overheard a worker telling another worker who was fixing the lighting say, “First the marketing then the mannequins.” Focus on lighting is also important...

Project 1: Paul Carlson

The Stonestown Apple Store is basically a long rectangle measuring approximately 80’ long by 22’ wide. The layout of the store emphasizes this in a linear fashion, employing simple rectangular and square tables on which Apple products are displayed. Tables are arranged along either side of the long walls as well as up the center of the space; this has the effect of not only creating two paths to the back of the store, but also putting many things within easy reach. Customers could literally turn away from one display area only to be immediately and spatially confronted with another display area.

Three types of materials were used throughout the store: glass/acrylic, wood, and metal. Combined, these create a very minimalist yet striking aesthetic, which also mirrors Apple’s product branding/identity. In addition, I believe these materials may be employed to convey subtle messages, that of transparency (glass/acrylic), sustainability (wood), and durability (metal). Apple hardware was placed closer to the entrance of the store, allowing customers the option of playing around with the products upon entering the store. Software and other accessories are placed closer to the back of the store, near the Genius Bar; presumably, this is because customers are more likely to take a less hands-on approach to software/accessories, and may require customer service assistance. Indeed, one thing I noticed was that on the day of our site visit, most people in the store were congregated near the back, even though the front of the store was more open and had plenty of unattended Apple products on display.

The window displays in the front were used to good effect; although the entire front façade (including the two doors) is glass, the two window displays on either side partially obscured the view into the store from the outside. I believe part of the motivation behind doing so was to give the Apple Store a sense of peace and tranquility, even when it’s bustling with customers. In addition, the window displays were used as teasers; the display on the left highlighted the new line of “green” laptops (with a large poster behind the laptops, calling attention to this fact), whereas the window display on the right had a larger-than-life model of the iPhone, along with a backdrop of oversized iPhone application icons, arranged in a grid (much as one would see them in the iPhone display screen). The effect was to both create a sense of calm yet entice customers and pique their curiosity.

Project 1 - Vans

Vans skate store -
Details such as the curved U ramp can be seen throughout the store, as well as exposed metal framing and concrete - materials that communicate skateboard culture. Another dominant material is birch wood used for tables, benches and several of the shelving units. The store is composed of four major pathways leading through apparel merchandise. All the way back are the company’s famed shoes dotted on display along a wall of birch paneling.
Display units and storage functions as dividers throughout the store and create sections (ie. skateboards, surf, accessories, shoes). Many tables and racks are on a slant and might clog circulation/keep a customer lingering. Mounted metal racks on the wall reach high and exhibit much of the clothing, advertisement paneling and framed sponsored sport exhibits.

Stephanie Wong- Project one: Lupicia

Lupicia Fresh Tea was small and narrow, mostly consisting of shelves and many display tables. The color themes of the store were green and brown, the walls were green with brown bamboo like tiles, and the wooden tables were also light brown. The Main entrance was made of glass doors and a poster hanging on the left side .The shelves were also made of glass that hung above the tables. There was a center piece when entering the store displaying their specially items. The lights were built into the ceiling, some rectangle and some circular. Some display lights were aimed towards the left large shelves and towards the register as well as the entrance. Several also hunger near the main poster in front. The smaller ones were evenly dispersed around the store. Also towards the back there were the register and storage rooms.

Alix Jiang-Stonestown-J.Crew

Alix Jiang-Stonestown-J.Crew

J.Crew store's display and layout is basically divided into women's and men's sharing almost equally half and half space. Among the high shelves, they fill the empty space with the display desks. So, the whole store feels pretty packed. The lighting is designed along the ceiling edge as well as some highlight display models. It is soft, gentle and warm lighting. 

The biggest problem of the store layout, I think, is lack of space. When I walk around the store, I don't feel like the flow is smooth enough. Full of display and full use of space makes the store a little bit disordered.

The successful part of this store is the color, which is black, since the J.Crew's clothing is very colorful designed. At this point, the store's theme color-black-is good for visualization.

 

Sherwin David - Project 1: MetroPark

Metro Park is hip clothing store that caters to young adults. Along with decorations, graphics, furnishings and lighting, the store utilizes just about each and every single space available for the products they sell. 

The store can be divided into five sections: women's clothing, men's, sales/discounted, checkout and the fitting room. The men's clothing section is on the left side of the store while the women's take up the right side. Both sections take up the store's entire floor space, stretching from the front of the store all the way to back which leads to merchandise that are on sale and the fitting room. 

The overall lighting and ambiance of the store is reflective of the lifestyle the store caters to. With large glass doors and windows, the store is rather inviting.  Three huge cylindrical lamp shades line up across the ceiling creating a soft lighting, while spotlights highlight featured clothing on mannequins. 

I thought that the overall set up or presentation of the store was rather good despite a couple of problematic areas. The flow, access and adjacency is very good. the set up draws customers into the store because they must walk from the front all the way to the back in order to see the selection of merchandise the store carries. Appropriately, new merchandise are displayed prominently in the front, while older ones get pushed back towards the back next to merchandise on sale or are discounted.

Besides being somewhat dark, I thought that the store was a bit overcrowded with clothes. The dark furnishing did not aid in opening or brighting up the store. Despite being overcrowded, the store felt full and complete. Jack Adams Hall is a huge space and I feel that one of the challenges in the process of realizing the exhibit is being able to utilize the space as cleanly and as efficiently as possible.

Project 1 - Noriko Matsuba

Stonestown Galleria Field Trip

Lupicia

We selected the store Lupicia, a retail store that sells fresh tea, and observed and analyzed its floor plan arrangement, circulation, display fixtures and visual identity. The overall dimensions of the store are twenty by seventy feet. The lighting consists of built-in ceiling lights as well as lights angled toward the displays along the walls. Display fixtures are very basic, just shelves, counter space and two freestanding tables. Surface textures are wood walls and flooring with a white painted ceiling. The circulation is linear. The visual identity is very clean, natural, organic and earthy with colors of wood, green and yellow.

Marion G. Project I : GAP Clothing

On the field trip to stonestown I chose to do my research on the GAP. When doing my sketches my attention was drawn to its simplistic floor plan. It had a museum feel to its decor. All of the display table and shelves were designed to maximize space. Anyone who walked into the store would not get lost in an abundance of merchandise that is hard to choose from. The latest arrivals were on tables at the front of the store and this would attract customers passing by looking through the large glass front windows. The front windows allowed people to see mannequins wearing new clothing. As I continued to sketch the interior I noticed there was only one shoe storage container. Its measurement was 4 feet high and 4 feet in length. This was odd because I didn’t see any shoes on display. The container was neat but didn’t look like it belonged there. This was one item on my floor plan and bubble diagrams I numbered as insignificant.

Project 1: Micah Cash

The apple store's layout is very simple, more of the modernist thing. One cool thing is that those huge banners above the tables that are off to the side are all up there by velcro, which is interesting. I also really liked the app. banner that they have at the front of the store. I like the "airy" idea, something that shows off the works more than the platforms that are holding the works. Especially if we are looking this to be re-usable for the next spring show, or to use somewhere in the department. I was trying to devise some sort of contraption that would hold posters with minimal effort but I haven't tested it yet, so I'm unsure that it will succeed under a stress test.

Project 1 Pino Trogu

Please make sure to add your name to the project in the title of the post. Make sure you do include the title. Add labels stonestown and the name of the store.

Eliasson