Your product in itself can be a strong driver for the design of your business premises. Evidently, some products lend themselves to this more than others, but any product can be used to great effect when it is put centre stage. One advantage of this approach is that your customer is left in no doubt over what it is that you are selling. Take this beautiful wine bar in Prague:
Red Pif Restaurant and Wine Bar, Prague, by Aulík Fišer Architekti
Reminiscent of traditional shop signage, the design of the window shutters clearly advertises the fact that this is a wine shop, but it is also functional, elegant and beautifully detailed. It works both externally, as advertising, and internally, as a shutter to cut our glare from the windows.
A more straightforward approach is employed across the chain of ‘Camper’ shoe shops. The latest models are displayed on a central table, the actual space around them is very much playing a supporting role.
Camper Shop, Glasgow
Some products are, of course, so beautiful that it seems that all they need is a rough painted brick wall to shine – a case in point is the classic Brookes saddle:
Brookes Boutique, Reno, USA
Other products present a different challenge where a large amount of stock needs to be accommodated. Usually, that is what the stock room is for, but through designing storage solutions that are beguiling in their own right, your stock can come to the forefront and become very much part of the customer experience. In this wine shop in Germany, pretty standard wire wine racks are coated in a range of colours to create a colourful matrix.
Weinhandlung Kreis, Stuttgart, Germany, by Furch Design und Produktion
However, some businesses take the opposite approach: rather than using their product to drive home the message of what it is they do, they play on our preconceptions of what certain shops should look like – just to confound our expectations.
What do you imagine this shop sells?
Hoxton Monster Supplies, London
What looks like an old-fashioned grocery shop sells, in fact, a range of sweets and toys branded to appeal to monsters. Here are some of their products:
But the shop really is really a front and a fundraiser for is The Ministry of Stories, a charity that teaches the art of story telling to children.
It just goes to show - you never can tell!