Killing it at Retail

How do you create a versatile structure to securely hold, organize, and display energy shots, plus make it easily sit on a counter, hang on the side of a cooler, or attach to a glass door? Our solution involved a steel ring structure featuring spring clips to grip the product, plus four supports designed to accommodate magnets, suction cups, or rubber feet. It then completed the look with large interchangeable vacuum-formed icons to trumpet the brand to the consumer.

Seeing it makes you want to hear it

Back in 2002, Onkyo needed a high-end looking display to showcase their latest surround sound system. The challenge was in devising an aesthetically appealing method to suspend the rear speakers behind the consumer so that they could enjoy the full audio experience. I came up with a few options using powder coated metal tubing.

A Well-oiled sales machine

Mobil needed a floor display that would showcase their flagship motor oil. They wanted it to convey an identity that's as tough, durable, and long lasting as the product itself. We chose to integrate components molded in a silver finish to match the packaging, ribbed details, diamondplate, and hexagonal bolt heads. A large interchangeable header graphic area with a sample bottle and a literature pocket on the side completed the look.

POP = Identity in 3D

Few brands have as well-defined an identity as the brand pictured below. Showcasing this identity while taking into account budget, scale, and structure is not a task for lightweights. It takes years of practice to be able to deliver concepts that hit every mark. Designers like to complain about the difficulty of providing a fresh, eye-catching designs under such daunting constraints, but often it is precisely these kinds of challenges which ultimately produce the most noteworthy results.

Making it Sparkle

Let's usher in the new year with a few examples of the many sparkling wine display concepts we've created over the years. We've created eye-catching permanent and temporary concepts for a slew of brands with a wide range of budgets. Call us if you need some fresh ideas!

Out of the Shoebox Concepts to Wow Skaters

All creative professionals have to do a lot of fairly pedestrian work to pay the bills, so when this project came along, we were delighted for the chance to push the creative envelope. Because Etnies is a youth-oriented brand, it welcomes the use of interesting angles, energetic color schemes and gritty materials. Interpreting their identity into structural forms and choosing finishes which could be easily sourced and manufactured is no small feat, but we relished the challenge.

Kim Crawford's Curves

Curves are eye-catching in any form. We felt they fit the Kim Crawford brand quite well when we designed a floor display to showcase their highly rated wines. This design works as a single unit or in pairs to double the capacity.

A Creative Spin on Energy

How do you make your little energy drink bottle stand out against all the visual noise at the register? We addressed the challenge by first considering novel ways to support and showcase the bottles, then interpreted the graphic identity (in this case, gears) into three dimension

Art Nouveau and Champagne

I've always been a big fan of the Art Nouveau movement, so when I got an opportunity to design some displays for Domaine Ste Michelle sparkling wines some years ago, I was thrilled. These concepts were especially challenging because the lines and shapes which define Art Nouveau have to look as if they were sculpted by hand, but engineering sculptured forms would have been prohibitively expensive.

Hand sketching as a religion

I love sketches because they are not only a very efficient first step in the design process, they also immediately provide a window into how a designer thinks and solves problems. The below images represent a few examples of our rough ideation sketching over the years. By providing rough thumbnails like these, we are able to quickly establish intent and save our clients significant time and money in the ideation process.

Boxed Wine Display ideation for Pepperwood Grove

Pepperwood Grove needed ideas for a cost-effective, impactful floor display to drive sales of their boxed wine. This relatively new style of wine packaging provided an opportunity for us to explore some interesting structural solutions. The renderings below represent a handful of the ideas we proposed.

Jelly Belly

When Jelly Belly wanted a new, eye-catching permanent floor display that would potentially be expandable to accommodate stores with a varying amount of available floor space, we provided them with a number of ideas. Check out the images below to see some of the ideas we came up with. Our 3D models of Jelly Belly products will soon be available on Turbsquid.com. Just search "Jelly Belly" (We may post one of the display models, too).

Teelings Whiskey Display Concepts

The client needed ideas for a floor display that would merchandise a prominent brand of whiskey. We were asked to provide ideas which would provide strong visual cues reflecting the brand identity, which is at once bohemian, modern, vintage, industrial, rustic, and upscale. Once the concepts below were considered, a winning idea was chosen, prototyped, approved, and can now be seen in stores worldwid

Modular smart home merchandising system

A few years ago, I was asked to design a display system for a major retailer which would provide a high-impact, flexible solution for a range of smart home control products. We provided a number of concepts, and eventually one direction was chosen, fabricated, and test marketed. Here are some examples of the work we did.