new dai exhibit show's name =)

hi everyone! ^_~
good job class! i <3 our new dai exhibit show's name "stream(ers)"! i'm super duper excited! ^_^
(& btw thx 4 showing a little support 2 "wow", "euphoria", "wink", & "flow". i appreciate all ur kindness! lol) >_<

New names

I was trying to brainstorm with some of my friends and we came up with:

Chaos (my favorite, you can definitely do a lot of great graphics and crazy designs with this)
Carnival- from this we also came up with peepshow and sideshow

Name ideas/sketches - keep as thread!

Names and potential logos. Reply in comments.

ideate
in/on
terra
creatio
echo
twenty
coalesce
in tandem

Project 1: Jennifer Lee..Lupicia Fresh Tea..

I went to Lupicia Fresh Tea at Stonestown Mall. The store is long and rectangular and about 22 by 70 feet. The floor and wall of the store is all wood and the ceiling is white with a smooth texture. The colors in the store were very earthy with browns and dark green (signage) giving the store a peaceful feeling. There was a lot of lighting around the whole store on the ceiling. The shelves are parallel to one another and the counters displaying the tea aligned with the register counter. The circulation of the store is going one way or the other in a circular direction depending on what side of the wall you’re interested in looking at first. The window displays didn’t show anything and there was some dead space as well. When first looking at the store from the outside, it’s very symmetrical and when you look inside, it has narrow space inside a long rectangle. The store felt really cluttered because there wasn’t enough space and the dead space in the store wasn’t really usable either because it’s in the corner to your left when you first walk in and there’s nothing to look at over there. Also, when you first step in there are two tea sample display tables right there so walking space to get to the rest of the store was pretty annoying, especially if you’re carrying things. Even though the store gives you a mellow feeling, you can’t stay in there too long without feeling claustrophobic. The teas smelled nice though. As for our exhibition coming up, lighting and signage is important, including space so you don’t feel so crammed.

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: Elsa Huerta, Stonestown, Apple

The visual aspect of the Mac store was very simple. The flow of the store started from the right, just like a roadway, and moved around with the outgoing flow on the left hand side of the store. All of the older products, such as the usual laptops and whatnot were in the front of the store near the 'flare'(which consisted of two banners that were delicately hanging from the ceiling. In the center area of the store were the smaller items such as the ipods, and the itouches and the iphones. These were well situated because since all the children who did frequent the store that day were all transfixed on these items and it kept them in the view of their parents and away from the front entrance. The easier to steal items were all in the back of the store, which was inhabited by many employees.

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.

Project #1 - Stonestown Galleria's Lupicia Fresh Tea

Lupicia Fresh Tea

The Lupicia Fresh Tea store located at Stonestown Galleria has a successful layout presentation. Everything there makes sense and serves a purpose. It is spatially well organized and uncluttered. The space is approximately 20 x 70 ft wide. The spatial relationship between the items and the empty space in the store are visually interesting because it gives people easy access and a comfortable relaxing feeling. The entrance in the front of the store has two large glass doors wide open that is inviting and welcoming. Next to the doors are the two wide glass store windows with relaxing tea displays behind them. Inside the store contains a simple tea display table at the center in front, a tea sampling table area with cups on the right side in front, an on "sale" tea table section area at the center on the right side of the wall support post, a large tea variety display/cabinet on the left side in the center, on the wall are glass shelves with tea displaying on the right side, there are selves and drawers containing tea on the left side taking up the whole entire wall, and the check out cash register area is at the back in front of the back counter that is against the back wall. All the display fixtures presented work well with the general circulation because of the roomy open space in the middle of the store. The circulation gives an easy flow of relaxation with air and space available in the center of the store that encourages people to be adventurous and explore. The main characteristics of the store contains the theme that conveys the healthy, relaxing and most importantly the stress free time for tea. The tea theme is a natural outdoor design of bamboo, wood, and fabric surfaces and textures. The colors of the store relates to theme and provides a healthy relaxing vibe with natural fresh earthy tones. The tones are of light to medium wooden brown floors, walls, and display cabinet/drawer storage in contrast to the dark natural leafy green grass color table cloths and outlines of the store. The clean white table cloths matched the ceiling color of soft cloudy white sky. On the ceiling are air vents, fire alarm and several sprinklers for fire safety. The ceiling also has several spotlights above the store in three different sizes. The lights are equally spaced above, except for a row of spotlights above the main tea cabinet display to highlight more focus and give more power in that area. The lighting is softly brightly lighted complimenting the store well by giving just enough light to see, but not blinding to the eyes. The tea advertisement signages and posters of tea varieties, tea names, tea advice, tea suggestions, and tea information ("Black Tea", "Green Tea", "Herbal Tea", "ORZO", "Pumpkin Pie", "Lemon Pie", "YUZU", "Takibi", "Chestnut", "Tea Bags", "Life Through", "Seasonal Gifts", "Sale", "Birthday", "Staff Recommendation", "Now Sampling", "Teaholics", "Top Five Winter Tea", and "Lupicia Top 10 Best Seller") stood out because of the good lighting that genuinely makes a difference and helps the environmental graphics and overall visual identity of Lupicia Fresh Tea. The aspects of the simple, yet elaborate organized design of a good lighted spatial atmosphere and environment in spaces that serves purpose and meaning could be attractive and useful towards defining the DAI exhibit show.

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.