Brand Building through Spatial Design

With the rise of e-commerce and omni-channel retailing and ubiquity of "brands" in the last few decades, the relevance as well as design approaches for "retailing" and "brand building" have evolved significantly. These novel challenges are demanding new approaches to retail store design. These are the challenges that tomorrow's interior designers will be facing in their professional careers. To address this evolving nature of retail store design, this studio focuses on design of variety of retail formats through the lens of brand building. The students select their own design problems / brand for this studio. They select a brand that is either expanding its product/service portfolio; is a new and growing brand; is a brand that needs a flagship store or an experience center to deal with its omni-channel presence; or is an old brand that requires revamping of its image. The students' projects commence with an interpretation of brand’s overall strategy, selection of the site and development of the program for an appropriate retail format. They then produce spatial design solutions for creating brand-centric customer experiences and present the design with a complete set of schematic drawings, models and views and graphics to communicate the strategies.