design:retail - July 2014 - (Page 8)

editor's note 008 The Gene ALISON EMBREY MEDINA EXECUTIVE EDITOR A alison.medina@emeraldexpo.com @dretaileditor S A N I N D U S T RY magazine editor, I have been asked on numerous occasions to sit in as a judge for a variety of student design competitions. During one particular in-person judging session a few years back, I sat next to a product designer who was artfully dressed and smiled pleasantly, but who was painfully shy when it came to casual conversation (something always noted by this loud-mouthed Southerner). As the student submissions whizzed by on the projection screen in front of us, I did my best to take notes on the standouts that rose above the pack: "The gray and purple, haunted-looking one." "The curvy one with the S-shaped legs." "The eccentric, steampunky one." These logical, descriptive terms might have been nonsense to anyone else, but for my note-taking purposes, my expressive and straightforward words suﬃced. Then, much like a middle-schooler casually glances at her neighbor's paper to see how far he has gotten on the test, I subtly tilted my head and directed my gaze to the notebook of the shy one sitting beside me. I expected to see a similar trail of adjectives and descriptors formulating his thoughts on which entries stood out. I did not. First of all, his notebook had no lines (as mine obviously did) and consisted of simple white drawing paper. Second, his "pen" was a shading pencil. And lastly, there wasn't a single word written on the page. Instead, my bashful friend had no less than 10 drawings of the student fixture designs he wanted to remember, beautifully and artfully sketched, shaded and organized on his no-line drawing paper notebook. JULY 2014 DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM Suddenly, I felt massively inferior. In mere seconds, the diﬀerence between his creative mind and mine became blatantly obvious. It never occurred to him to write a description of a drawing-his brain simply saw a visual image and instantly-and instinctively-visually re-created it. I do not have that gene. My brain sees beautiful things and automatically works to re-create them via the written word. Tit for tat. C'est la vie. Right? A follow up conversation revealed that he had attended design school for his education (much like many of the students whose work we were judging). While I was busy writing paper after paper and filling blue book after blue book with perfectly crafted, grammatically correct sentences in journalism school, he was ﬁlling a portfolio with sculpture, photography, drawings and graphic designs. I was green with envy. The same pang of jealousy hits me each year when we host our annual Student Window Challenge, presented by Saks Fifth Avenue. At our New York event in June, I watched as these amazingly talented students from FIT and LIM College took scraps of fabric, burned-out light bulbs, strands of beads and discarded paper, and turned them into some pretty freaking amazing store window designs for the one and only Saks Fifth Avenue-and with a time limit, no less. Their innovative use of the materials and the poise and control demonstrated in their work was in and of itself a work of art. Kudos to all 12 of the students in New York and their ﬁnished window designs (see page 60 to view for yourself)-I am still baﬄed by and mind-numbingly jealous of your astounding creativity. Our Student Window Challenge moves to Los Angeles this month, with a West Coast rendition at the Saks store in Beverly Hills. I can't wait to see what ﬂavors the California kids from FIDM bring to the table on that side of the country. (Psssst! If you are in the area, register to attend the After Party on July 31 at Saks Beverly Hills: designretailonline.com/saksla.) Meanwhile, I'll be here at the computer, pecking away at a keyboard and constantly spewing a bunch of words that attempt to describe the many wonders of the exquisite retail world you all have created for me. That's my gene, and I'm sticking to it. Illustration by JESSE LEFKOWITZ http://www.designretailonline.com/saksla http://www.DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM

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

design:retail - July 2014
Contents
Editor’s Note
Show Talk
On Trend
We Love This!
Designer Picks
Innovation
Postcard
Inspirations
Have You Heard?
Mingle
Shopper Insights
Shopping With Paco
Walmart
Macy's
Student Window Challenge New York
Fixture Leaders
Products
Backstory

design:retail - July 2014