the perfect coat

This would look so great in my store...or my closet!

LOGOS on BLACK BACKGROUND

LOGO DESIGN - ON WHITE BACKGROUND

Overcast Perspectives

Perspective Inspiration

I like the dramatic look of the white on black drawing. I want to try this. I think it will be particularly suitable for what I want to show in my space.

I like this drawing posted on a flickr blog. It is a hand drawn sketch colored later in photoshop.

The Rest Will Follow

It's a blustery day in the city... or not quite.  So my pieces that keep driving the idea conceptually are:

• my product: high fashion meets practical sophistication :: trench coats and attaches, etc.
• the cloudy day
• the street scape: specifically power lines, street lines, electrical towers, light poles

How do these products relate to one another?  Trench coats are symbolic for so many things.

They are iconic.  Think James Bond, Jackie O, Prince Charles, Carry Grant, Carrie Bradshaw.

They are sexy.  Think James Bond, Jackie O, Carry Grant, Carrie Bradshaw.

They are mysterious.  One one hand people wear them to make a statement.  And on the other people wear them to blend into the crowd.  They cover everything, and in a way have become a symbol for covering what's underneath.  They are a requirement for every good P.I.

They are also practical, they protect you from the elements.  Walk down the street on a blustery day in New York and everyone has one.  And what else are they all carrying? A breifcase- or today- a laptop case.  

So that's why I have chosen these two products to go together.  The same market that might purchase a trench coat, might also purchase a fine breifcase or designer pen.

And the idea is to have items for people to browse through and look at.  Also, the merchandise would change fairly frequently throughout the seasons so that there is a limited amount of product on display at one time.

The cloudy day seems to work so seemlessly with the product as well.  You can imagine a person, man or woman, rushing down the streets of downtown on a cold, blustery day on the way to a business meeting.  From the looks of it, Greensboro most certainly has a fashion-conscious business class and they like to look good - even on a rainy day, from head to toe, car to car keys.  It's about the details.

I want the store to reflect this type of atmosphere.  Kind of gritty city on an overcast day.  One thing I love about an overcast day is that the light is very diffuse.  That indirect light seems to help keep colors outside in intense saturation, and it's so beautiful.  I also like the idea of power lines and street lamps.  If you've ever tried to go out and take pictures of the suburban landscape, you're constantly trying to frame a view without powerlines in it.  In this case I want to celebrate the beauty of the banal and make it work to establish a mood.

The Revolution Mills is formerly very industrial.  I can see how this shop would fit well into the context by keeping exposed a lot of the existing materials and adding in new reused materials that speek about the streetscape.  A couple ideas for new, reused materials are steel- creating a few space dividers, or floor to ceiling fixtures inspired by the electrical tower. Very rectilinear, but also very formulaic and easily recognizable.  In a way the trench coat is the same way.  There are a million different variations, but they are all based on the same formula.

I have a distinct idea for thew way I want the lighting to feel.  I want to screen the natural lighting, which in my shop would be at the back of the store, or use it strategically to draw your eye to an otherwise concealed portion of the store - perhaps behind a screen or mesh.  Then I want to back light a single trench coat in a wall display.  Maybe there are a few iterations of this on one wall. I would propose to backlight it with very diffuse light that also would help to spill into the space and remove the need for overhead lighting.  Then, I would like to use embedded floor lights- like the ones you see on the outside of buildings, illuminating the facade, to create gently washed, hot spots on the front of the coat.  I want to uplight the structural metallic fixtures in the space as well as you often see electrical towers uplit.  

I want the thin, slightly sagging lines of the power line to be pervasive in the space.  I can see a wall system, made of taught line on which wooden or aluminum portfolio binders hang.  Perhaps there is a slightly canted (like a podium) style midfloor fixture that features five or six of these folios laying flat on the surface.  Maybe there are a set of thin elastic bands that the folios slip under.  It's an element that is both functional and aesthetic.

I also want to maximize my window display.  I like the idea of this being the place where on my large slanted wall I can create an interior environment for my manequins by employing the metal electrical tower-like structure that curves over them.  Spot lights like on a movie set - or maybe lamp posts or maybe a custom light fixture like one of those on the end of the long, overhanging lamp posts can spot light the product.  It could be really cool to have this be the one place where the light slighty flickers on and off like a street lamp, sporatically and barely imperceptible atleast to the shoppers outside so that they have to do a double take to see if the light really flickers on and off or not.  This might be a bit gimmicky.  It only works on the shopper once, but I think it could be interesting and add to the authenticity.

Much of my inspiration for the store in terms of lighting contrasts that maintain a high level of sophistication is the flagship store for the french label L'Eclaireur.  It however encorporates alot of warm tones in its design.  I would like use LED lighting, which gives off a cooler light than incandescant (sp?).  I think I will stray away from using the very blue looking LEDs and try to encorporate some of the newer LED technology which has been able to eliminate much of that blue essence.  Nevertheless, I do want to use dark greys and Payne's grays, hints of a midnight blue and white.  Much of my inspiration or color and texture will come from my photographs of the street and sky that I took.  I would also like to encorporate the photography into the graphics of the space, especially the images of the lamp posts and the sky- they are slighty ethereal and menacing.  

I don't want this space to feel harsh, subversive or frightening.  I want it to feel moody and somewhat edgy, like how you might feel on a cloudy day.  I always seek solitude on a cloudy day- it just brings the introvert out in me.  In a way, I think I can psychologically use this to my advantage and play up how the product, the trench and the attaches/folios are about expressing your inner self, your individuality, or maybe even your somewhat darker alter ego.  Just take a look at myspace and you'll get a glimpse into how popular the idea of the sexy, alter ego is. 

The main thing I struggle with is how this store will remain fresh throughout the seasons.  I need to be able to sell the product Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall.  I think I can accomplish this with music and by making the lighting and the colors of the panels behind the trench coat display (I can't help but imagine resin) to be able to change.  Maybe this is something I can do by using a colorless and cloudy resin and making it into a removable panel behind which I can put a color gel in front of the light or install a big, bold graphic on a huge transparency.

 

Precedents and The Like - WINESTORE

Winestore, Charlotte, North Carolina

"Bold Flavor," Inform Architecture and Design, 2007, No. 2, p18.

As their website says: "YOU'RE THE EXPERT ... Wine buying for the rest of us. It's not about stuffy wine reviews and knowing exactly what you want. Drink what you like. As long as you never use the term 'oaky,' you'll be just fine. "


I love the impossibly thin light tubes that illuminate the signage above the wine racks on the wall. There is such keen attention paid to the ceiling heights and creating spaces within spaces. In the front of the store there is a small area where the walling turns to ceiling and fixtures connect to floor and ceiling and create rotating wine racks that are larger than human scale.

The store in clean and cool, an ideal environment for wine. This could explain why there is no major attempt at creating ingenuitive window displays: sunlight and heat destroys wine. Instead the focus is on creating functional fixtures that show off the product and market it to a particular customer. The red wall appropriate for a wine store provides some visual heat and warmth to the space. An alcove of golden wood also achieves this aim.

This is an interesting case study in how to organize a product that is extremely diverse, but on the outside essential all looks the same. While an interesting label will attract the customer, the store helps establish an order that can bring the customer closer to their perfect match in a creative way.

The fixtures are easy enough to interact with - ring holders hold vertically placed bottles of wine next to cards with their descriptions on them. Sandwiched in the inside of the fixture is a wine rack that hold the extra stock.

Bright colors and industrial materials keep the store universal in its appeal to men and women. The interior is sparse in the way of furniture. There appears to be a bar for tasting- sans the barstool. Also a similarly constructed semicircular cash wrap sits in the back of the store where the salesperson has a clear view of the whole store while remaining out of the main path.

The store is really very minimal. There is not much of what I like to call the "linger factor." The shopping experience seems to focused on ease of selection so that the customer may chose their product, pay for it, and head home. Perhaps this is a perfect marketing strategy in and of itself. Make it easy for the customer to buy, especially after an exhausting work week (i'm assuming when most people stop by), thereby ensuring their return.

Winestore-online.com says that "We wanted to eliminate that fear and extend the favorable experience on the retail side. We have built our brand value on providing a positive experience for our customers above all else. Winestore is the result of that concept – a contemporary solution to the wine purchasing experience. All the aesthetic decisions for the identity were derived in order to distinguish Winestore from other wine shops by being innovative as well as approachable. Winestore is about celebrating the individuality of each brand of wine it sells, as well as the experience."

The store is super user-friendly employing touch screen kiosks, wine-tasting machines and signage that tells you the simple facts: RED, WHITE, even TAX REFUND.

The idea here is to not bombard the customer.

"Our goal is to provide a fun, educational and non-intimidating shopping experience for wine lovers of all levels of expertise" (http://www.winestore-online.com/store/)