Window design (Part 1)

Window for a retail shop is very important. Window design gives the first impression to the people. Mostly, people look a shop’s window in the beginning to know if the style of the shop is what they like. Sometime people decide if they want to go inside the shop or shopping desire by only looking their window. So, window design is not just shows their product, but promotes the brand and a pathway of communication between retailer and customer.

Several years ago, one of the shops of “Opening Ceremony” in London changed the posture of the model in window, which made people feel more rhythmic. They did not use a lot of decoration to decorate the window, just changed model’s posture to attract costumer. 

Secondly, the design of window need to be seen through that costumer can see some of other products from outside. Opening Ceremony did it, just used simple models to attract people’s vision and left some space that people can see the shop inside through the glass.

Shopping in Manchester

This is my first time to Manchester, although I have been to Warrington, Chester and Liverpool the city near Manchester more than one time, but I had never thought about going there before. I’ve heard that it is a big industrial city and quite boring. However, I suppose Manchester is a city good for doing the project of Design for Retail.

You can find almost every brand in Manchester. The city centre’s area is so big, and there’s a shopping centre called Arndale. The brand which I want to do – La SENZA has a shop in Arndale as well.

Firstly, when I just got into Arndale, a wall full of old sewing machine can be seen in the beginning. That is a window of Urban Outfitters. I have no idea why they used old sewing machine to decorate the window, but it does achieve the effect of attractive eye.

Outside the Arndale, a clothes shop which is my favourite brand – Jack Wills, is in a little street. Every Jack wills shop has the same interior design: pink and navy blue stripe wall with lots of old fashion pictures in the stairwell, show the style directly.

Then turn into La SENZA. I though the shop in Manchester might be designed better, but actually it’s quite similar: same interior design with lots of wood and empty window only with some posters and model. It has the similar location as the one in Leicester; it’s also in a corner, but just waste the window space to promote their products.

WATCH. THIS. SPACE.

For the little presentation in class, my teammates and I went to the area near St. Marin square; there are two main streets, which are Silver Street and Cank street. Our area also included St Martin square and Silver Arcade.

In this area, there are totally 105 shops, 47 for service, 38 for retail and 20 closed.

We chose another day for choosing which shop we would like to introduce. The shop which I chose was an accessorize retail shop, named WATCH. THIS. SPACE. This shop is a cutting edge design boutique that showcases and sells the work of independent designer/makers and graduates locally and from across the UK. In here, you can find very good price for a cutting edge design and the products which are sell in here are either limited edition or bespoke.

They used plenty of feather, woods, books and basket to decorate the shop, make people have the feeling of Revival, Indiana or Bohemian-style. It’s quite unique and has their own style. That’s the reason why I chose this shop to introduce.

But because of their unique, when I asked the staff if I can take photographs for my presentation, she said they are not allowed any photograph, and just said I can use the pictures they share on Facebook. Others shop like what Kelly and Justin chose, they we just asked them if we can take pictures and the reason why we need, they said yes generously.

La SENZA (Part 2)

According to the interview of staff in La SENZA, I know that the peak hour of the shop in Leicester is from 12pm to 3pm, and the most popular day is Tuesday, then Wednesday evening, after that is Friday. Saturday has 1% different less than Friday. That is quite a big difference between the realistic and my imagination. I thought Saturday and Sunday should be peak period; however, the realistic is totally different. The staff even didn’t mentioned Sunday.

In general, there are 670~700 people go inside this shop per day, but only 15% of costumers really buy something. Most of people go with their friends or family seldom see people go along.

Because I want to redesign their window, I searched some pictures about other La SENZA shop on other city. I thought only the one in Leicester didn’t pay attention on the window design, while most of images of La SENZA’s window were not really design well. Most of them also just put some models wearing their products or only poster. Seldom shop put attention on the window design.

La SENZA

I have chosen La SENZA as the shop to re-design.

La SENZA is a lingerie shop which is in a corner of High Cross. According to my observation for three weeks, they change their window every week. However, they have a big space for window; they do not use it well. They just put a model in some of the window and change their lingerie every week; some of windows even just have a poster of their sale information. It does not have good design.

The other problem in this shop is their fitting room. They use fabric to cover the entrance for each room, but the big problem is the fabric cannot cover the whole entrance, it have a big gap the people can see from outside. For a lingerie shop, this is a big disadvantage, because girls have to naked inside and try the new product.

But, a good point is they consider about disable people that have one fitting room specific for disable people, although it still have a big gap.

During the time when I was there, about 30 minutes, most of customers were go with their friends, with a group of girl, go with family or with partner, seldom people go along. 

How a shop present their brand - La SENZA

• How we think high street change in 20 years?
• A lot of shop combine media in their store that customer can compare the price more quickly. At the same time, the products become unique and individual.

• La SENZA’s use peachblossom and black as the colour of the brand, staffs’ uniform are black T-shirt with their logo on it and black trousers. However, before you go into the shop, you can see very colourful image. They sale plenty of different colours’ product and most of them are light colour with bright lights, that make people feel full of energy. But they don’t use peachblossom and black for their main colours, just have a black counter. The interior design of La SENZA was used a lot of wood on the wall, which is not very in the link of their brand colour.

• Move on to the fitting room, they use pink and black as the main colours, and the curve which is similar as their logo.

• The time when we were observed the shop, the seller actually didn't have too much interactive with costumers; they used most of free time to arrange the products. But if anyone has any problem of request, they were all very kind.

The overview of retail shop - what does people do

•  Argos has completed changed the way they sell stuff. What they done and how they done it.

• Argos combined the internet in store with online shopping and "order & collect" in store, which is time saving. The consumers can consider different style's purchasing and be given different service. The category of online system also makes consumers easier to compare different product.

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• I've been to High Cross on Saturday afternoon; it is the most popular time for shopping in a week. There were a lot of people in High Cross and High Street as well. However, most of people were not really want to buy something. They might just look around or tried the product in the shop. Take Apple as an example, from 3:35 to 4:00, there were average 4 to 5 groups of people went into this shop per minuets, but only 6 groups of people really bought something. Most of people went with their family or friends, seldom people went along.

• The other thing that I have found was most of shop's sale areas were very messy, the clothes were on the floor and did not really organized well. People would not look ever product one by one, in sale area, people usually just looked one or two parts. On the other hand, people who went to clothes shop like Top Shop, New Look, H&M for buying clothes would ask the advice to the people who went with them, not decided by themselves.