In my work I truly am drawn to iconic buildings so when I got the call from my client saying that he was interested in taking a lease of Griffyn House my attention was immediately captivated.
The building dates back to 1896, on its ground floor the concrete remnants of the fireplace and welcoming room give an indication of the buildings former domestic glory.
As a schoolboy I used to pass this building on my daily commute and as far back as I can remember it has been a showroom of some kind. This makes a lot of sense as the flatiron shape and pivotal location lend themselves to display.
Roger, my client is what one calls a shoe dog, he RUN’s (pun intended) a successful retail franchise and holds the dealership license on many of the top athletic shoe brands locally. In addition he is a travel fundi and takes regular trips to Europe, on one of these such trips he came to realize the shift in the running world to community based meets and the foremost current trend was community track running meets. Weekly gatherings see large numbers of punters gathering to do work outs together and these mostly focus on speed. Now speed in running is not a new thing, but these days brands are pioneering advances in shoe technology. The ethos of the shoe is geared towards ensuring you achieve your personal best.
For this build no there was no existing corporate identity, only the name. I briefed in my old friend Dylan Farr, design lead and director at Superseed studio and gave them my narrowed palette, track running centered motif and bold minimal directive. Over the course of a few weeks we honed their work and presented back to client. He loved it and we had a concrete design base to build the stores artistry around.
I identified the product offering the store wanted to trade and to realise the vision the shoes were to be treated as the hero. To optimize visibility the window frontage would be key and in order to optimize space the window display should be effective from inside the store as well. I conceptualized the display halo. A circle with internal illumination that allowed the shoe to “float” in the central display. After some R & D with my manufacturing team I had a proof of concept and was excited that the vision would work. For the main merchandising solution, I wanted something that would allow flexibility and adaption in display without blocking the striking graphic that I had created with the design team, I opted for a custom grid display, affixed to vertical posts and blacked out to add a grid layering of its own on top of the graphic. A key part of the teams service is to analyze a runners gait using an app to film the customer on a treadmill, Instead of hiding this in the back I centralized it in the space and trimmed the working parts in the brands signature green.
“To further pin this key feature and pay homage to the pressed ceiling a designed a light fitting, made from industrial hose and tied in the fashion of a shoelace which is lit up and suspended over the treadmill.”
In summary, this was a passion project in that I was able to work on the development and execution from start to finish, the store is showing early success and I cant wait to build further of these around the country.
