Visual merchandising
TD Canada Trust’s design can be likened to many fast-food restaurants, with a transparent front leading to the main teller counter with few visual or physical obstructions and a dominant drive-thru.
The multibillion-dollar visual merchandising industry, comprising everything from fixtures to displays and digital point-of-purchase (POP) graphics can be thought of as a central operating system for retailers, following practices sensitive to customer actions and psychology. Signage in visual merchandising is often seen on two levels: (a) macro-level signs—that identify key areas of the store—are relatively fixed and cannot be changed easily; and (b) micro-level signs—POP, point-of-sale (POS), and promotion signs—that are flexible and adaptable to the environment.
Excellence in retail wayfinding is often achieved through a close correlation between how the macro and micro level of signs are managed, so as to achieve a seamless integration, rather than gaps in consistency and quality.
There has been considerable pressure for visual merchandisers to innovate in order to compete with online shopping, which has led to the use of multi-sensory elements like smell and touch, as well as digital and dynamic displays.
Marketing and promotion
Marketing departments have an outsized impact on wayfinding signs in the retail environment. With access to high-quality large-format printing, retailers are working to turn promotion into part of the wayfinding process through large-scale marketing materials integrated into lightboxes, fixtures, and window design. For example, retailer H&M regularly uses signs to promote new products and also to define spaces inside the store.
The growth in large-format graphics has also resulted in mergers between industries to better control brands in the environment. The packaging and fixture industries, for example, have combined their efforts to control how products are displayed in stores, with less need for intervention by in-store personnel. Trade show exhibit fabricators have also found opportunities in retail by developing pop-up stores and pavilions inside of existing stores.
Branded environments
Retailers are working to turn promotion into part of the wayfinding process through large-scale marketing materials integrated into lightboxes, fixtures, and window design.
American commercial interior designer Eva L. Maddox first coined the term ‘branded environments’ for practices that integrate branded communications into environmental design. Closely aligned with the discipline of experience design, branded environments treat retail spaces as the main driver of an organization’s brand. These environments have evolved into an exploration of architecture, materials, space, and landscape that reinforce corporate and institutional identities.
In the retail sector, this evolution has resulted in stores that share design attributes with other types of facilities such as airports, offices, and residences. As such, signs and wayfinding programs in this environment often have greater permanence and are closely integrated with their interiors.
Digital wayfinding
In the last decade or so, digital retail technology has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry that has touched every aspect of the buying and selling experience. Many retailers have worked to develop systems that link web purchasing, the movement of inventory, and in-store purchasing into one seamless system.
Interestingly though, extending these systems to visual signs in the environment has been a difficult task. Beyond front-of-store and key landmark displays, in-store networks have been difficult to develop due to high upfront costs and ongoing management.
One area where digital systems have started to make significant headway is in-store networks, particularly for content intensive retailers like electronics and communications. Interactive content allows retailers to understand customer behaviours and purchases, which further allows them to truly realize the value of digital investment.
Craig M. Berger is chair of the visual presentation and exhibition design department of the Fashion Institute of Technology’s (FIT’s) School of Art and Design and runs his own firm, Craig Berger Management Consulting, which assists fabricators, manufacturers, and institutions with design-based marketing and education strategies. This article is based on a project spearheaded by the Sign Research Foundation (SRF), a charitable non-profit organization that supplies academic research on effective sign strategies, systems, and codes and facilitates dialogue between architects, urban planners, developers, code officials, business owners, and designers to help support more navigable cities, thriving businesses, and strong urban identities. For more information, visit www.signresearch.org.
