Project 1

Photo by: Laura Munos


A: Location of Swarovski


Swarovski is a small crystal shop, which is located on the second floor of Stonestown Galleria Mall, at 3251 20th Ave in San Francisco. The size of the store is about 24’ X 18’. The entrance is about 6’ wide. The storefront signage is above the door in a rectangular format with the white type on background. The main color of the store is mostly in orange-red and some black. The space between the wall display cases and the counter is a little tight when two persons are standing back-to-back. The display cases have the glass/transparency windows for visibility and protection purpose. The traffic can be flowed to the right or left depending on the habit of the visitors. But, placed the 24” X 36” poster on the left hand side of the entrance might be the first thing that the store wants their customers to see when they ‘re entering the store or the poster might function as a traffic director. The circulation might start from the right then exit from the left because of the poster’s placement. The poster stand is simple and easy to build. Extended two sides of the frame to create the legs for the stand. Attaching the horizontal bars on the bottom of these legs to keep the poster stand and sturdy. The two larger size posters and the lighting system are hanging with the silver wires. Both of these posters can be used as the attention getters. They are easy to see from a distance. That’s an easy way to display the artwork with the little use of materials. The flower-like petal counters are very unique. The shapes of the counters add the soft and feminine look and feel to the store and their products. The pattern can also convey the message of the store since their target audience is mostly woman. The cool circular format lighting system on the ceiling above these counters looks like the stars in the sky. Overall, the display of the store is simple, clean, organized, contemporary and unique.

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.

Project 1

Bath and Body Works:

This project was very interesting for me because while I am used to walk into stores and look at the typography and label design on the products, I am not used to looking at details in the layout of the store at all. When I walk into a store, I sense the type of atmosphere that it is trying to give off with it's layout and decor, but I never look at the details that create that mood. I was very interested in taking apart a store layout like that because it is fun to see how a few simple elements create the entire feel of a space.
Here's what I noticed about the store:
Bath and Body works uses lighting, materials, and layout in their stores to make their store look like a spa. When you enter the store, you find yourself in a very clean-looking, relaxed but still fun environment. The floors in the first section are marble and the walls are all white. The walls are covered with shelves of bath products and the tables in the front of the stores are stacked with hand soaps-the promotional items this week. The white shelving is illuminated by track lighting -also white- and color-coordinated to make attractive color patterns on the shelves. Overall, the entire store is lit by track lighting on the edges and recessed lighting throughout the center of each room. There is a wood-panel border above all the shelving that is painted white and that gives off a “country bath” feel, which I believe is left over from a few years back when the store identity was had more of a rustic countryside feel than the cool new “spa” vibe that it gives off today.

Project 1

It’s imperative that the exhibits area be both aesthetically pleasing and functionally sound. Wheel chair access as well as items must be viewable for people with various heights. Things need to be in an order rather than a scattered unorganized mess. There needs to be a clear entrance and exit of the exhibit area so that the viewer does not feel trapped. If colour is to be used in the painting of fixtures it must be colours that are easy on the eyes.

Welcome to 524 Spring 2010

Hi all, just a few guidelines when posting. Please keep it short if possible. Very important: include "labels" by typing them in or using existing labels. Make sure you check before adding a duplicate label, the label you want to use may already exist. For example, for assignment 1, use the existing project 1 or Stonestown labels. Please respond to the blog invite so that you can be an "author" on the blog and be able to post entries. Thank you and look forward to a great semester.

DAI Show website

http://daishow.sfsu.edu/

This is the current working prototype of the website. It will be expanded in 2010.

More photos on flickr

More photos courtesy of Joanne Ignacio:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/truthfiend/sets/72157618392787880

Stream photos on flickr

Hi everyone, I posted some pictures of the show on flickr.
Click here to view all pics.
It would be great if you all shared the pictures you took of the show, either on the blog, flickr, or other photo sharing site. Have a great summer. Pino

Comments and Suggestions on Exhibit "Stream"

Hello, Everyone. I like to say that we all did a wonderful job on the exhibit. Thanks to all for the extra effort.

Here are some suggestions for improving the designing processes and efficiency of exhibits in the future. After a brief discussion of what was missing I felt that the some of the graphic displays for our logo was flat. I mentioned at the beginning of the semester that we might run into trouble with this because everyone was focused on simplicity. Some other parts of the exhibit that structure could have improved on were the uses of more color or as Ricardo mentioned green and orange stripes on the light valences. The final two thing were the lighting for the digital media section could have been darker to give the onlooker a movie theatre effect. The final thing for improvement was the arrangement of the student work. I thought that there were many projects that were great like the "lamp" display, but was hidden out of view. Thanks Marion G.