design:retail - June 2014 - (Page 6)

editor's note 006 Making Things ALISON EMBREY MEDINA EXECUTIVE EDITOR alison.medina@emeraldexpo.com @dretaileditor I LIKE TO MAKE THINGS. Not all of the time, of course. But if I'm given the choice of buying something interesting or making it myself, I often opt for the adventurous route. (With the exception of pastries and desserts, that is-I am not a baker!) We bought our house nearly four years ago with an unﬁnished basement, and have spent the last year slowly but surely turning a raw construction zone into another ﬁnished layer of our home. I'm proud to say that I painted the 9-ft.-high chalkboard wall, as well as refinished the brass lamps passed down from my grandmother. I also hung and grouted the subway tile behind the bar and made the dartboard backer out of wine corks (well, technically I made the ﬁrst two-thirds of it before running out of corks-it's a work in progress). We even made a bookshelf nook in my daughter's closet out of plastic white rain gutters-for a whopping $13-an idea that spawned from a photo I saw on Pinterest. That's not to say that I'm some sort of Pinterest crafting wizard. On the contrary, I created a board on Pinterest called "Things I Would Do If I Were Awesome." It's ﬁlled to the brim with amazing kids crafts and home DIY decorating ideas that I know I will never in my lifetime have time to commit to. I like to collect the images as a rare form of self-inﬂicted parental punishment. I'm in awe and amazement of those moms out there that JUNE 2014 DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM can whip up some sea turtle cupcakes and mac 'n cheese underwater scenes-but I will never be one of them. So while super-crafting mom I am not, I am, however, a maker of magazines. And in this issue, we selected topics and features that we felt leant toward the creative side of our business. We focused on retail that has been made phenomenal because of the creative hand that was dealt in its conception and creation. Like how the idea of a hole in a belt buckle groomed itself into a sensational merchandising technique for men's accessories and footwear at Araldi1930, this month's cover story (page 42). And how the design team at LOVE created a solar-powered pop-up installation to support the idea of the everyday consumer going solar (page 16), while a grocer in Norway is using its store design to actually help people eat better (page 60). Whether creativity spawns from the mind, the heart or the hands-or some combination of the three-the artistry that results typically blurs a ﬁne line with another word that is often overused in our industry: innovation. Pushing old concepts in new directions, or simply defying convention and introducing new ideas never thought possible, innovation is the end result of creativity on the retail front. To that end, we opted to feature 10 retail concepts (page 50) that are walking the line of creativity and innovation from across the globe. Will all of these ideas take oﬀ in the mainstream retail market? Who knows. But once a seed is planted, it's pretty hard not to watch it grow. Maybe one or two of them will even end up on my Pinterest board- I'm thinking of calling that one "Things I Would Do If I Were SUPER Awesome." Illustration by JESSE LEFKOWITZ http://www.DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of design:retail - June 2014

design:retail - June 2014
Contents
Editor’s Note
Show Talk
On Trend
Inspirations
We Love This!
We Love This!
Designer Picks
Innovation
Postcard
Have You Heard?
Mingle
The Visual Eye
Searching for Steve Jobs
Araldi1930
The Creative Factor
Meny
adidas
Products
Backstory

design:retail - June 2014