Services
Our services are oriented to retail business. Our strengths and heritage lie in working on branding, business strategies, merchandising, interior design, lighting, resource design, contract documentation, and facilitation of the construction process.
Strategy
- Program Development & Business Planning
- Competitive Reviews & Visual Audits
- Experience Mapping
- Brand Ideation
- Visual Planning
The future of any store should be guided by, but not limited to, its past. We start by collecting information and making observations to define project goals, expectations, and requirements; to guide and evaluate the creative stages; and to establish an appropriate scope of services. We use this input both to generate ideas and as a reality check to determine what is practical.
Sometimes the client has a need to better understand the environment and market in which a store will operate. This process might involve looking at the competition, understanding customer expectations across product categories and services, and analyzing how these needs are being met at retail. Our consulting process brings together the best expertise in a seamless collaboration.
Design
- Space Planning & Utilization
- Concept Development
- Interior Design
- Lighting Design
Design is central to creating powerful retail experiences. Design is the vehicle to create and reinforce the consumer’s expectation for an experience that will be holistic among all the elements they interact with—from the merchandise to the environment. The design process also builds a platform for the discovery of new opportunities that go beyond solutions to immediate problems. Good design strikes a balance between the transient enthusiasms of trend and lasting quality.
In this step, alternative concepts are explored in visual sketch or mock-up form. In our experience, there is a high correlation between the quantity of ideas produced and the quality of the ideas. We expect to undertake a ranging exploration of ideas and conduct combinations of internal critiques and joint team work sessions. Cost and feasibility parameters are checked as this step concludes.
Resource Design
- Palette Selection
- New Resources
- Resource Management
- Sustainable Design
- Performance Criteria
- Owner Purchasing Coordination
- Product Technical Specification/Information
- In-Store Shop
- New Business Ventures
Creating a project vision through the selection of color, products, and materials is a balance of the practical and the aesthetic. We carefully select each finish to communicate the intended experience, influence perception, and ultimately set a persuasive environment for the presentation of merchandise or services.
Our Resource Design Studio is a vehicle for ongoing research into new products. It is also a vast library of samples and a broad-based resource data bank, a design and performance evaluation lab, a mock-up and model-building workroom, and a gallery of new and constantly changing materials and ideas critically important to the design process.
Graphic Communications
- Way Finding & Signage Systems
- Environmental Graphics
- Brand Development & Identity Communications
- Integration of Digital Media
- Packaging Design
- Control Systems
Stores are media that communicate messages about the store brand through their architecture, interior environment,
finishes, presentation, and services. Graphic communications offer additional ways to merge the temporal media of graphics, signage, and interactivity with the more permanent media of architecture and interiors to create comprehensive communications about the offer.
Visual Planning
Successful stores use principles of art, architecture, and theater in visual planning and product presentation. The ways in which these principles are used transmit a sense of excitement and energy to the shopping experience. We offer services to integrate art, create themes, plan for focals, and institute disciplines of presentation in order to optimize productivity of space.
Architectural Services
- Theme Development
- Design
- Adaptive Reuse
- LEED Services
Retail buildings offer numerous opportunities to shape the consumer experience. We combine our architectural services with interior planning and design to form compelling destinations and to respond to the requirements of governing authorities. Our collaborative services can respond to needs for survey assessments, feasibility studies, core and shell design, master planning, adaptive reuse of existing buildings, coordination and integration of engineering disciplines, and contract documents.
Contract Documents &
Construction Administration
- Contract Documents
- Shop Drawing & Submittal Review
- Budget Analysis
- Construction Specifications
- Construction Administration & Coordination of Engineering Disciplines
- Punch List & Project Closeout
Accurate, thorough, and timely documents are fundamental to delivering a coordinated and well-defined scope of work, controlling costs, and meeting schedule requirements. Our documents are among the most comprehensive in the industry, and when combined with our support services in the administration and coordination of the construction process, they result in projects that are complete, timely, and meet our clients’ cost parameters.