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Retail project in 1000 words

Retail project, the two words I heard the most when I spoke to a senior. OMG! it’s the day before we get the brief for the project… unfortunately I fell sick that night and was unable to make it for lectures the next day but all I could remember was waking up to a million notifications on our interior group. Everyone was confused even though they were in class the fear caught up to me, what if this is super hard and already missed the brief... This is not the best way to start a new project.

Couple days later it was time to review with Kike, our module tutor on which brand we would be choosing, I wasn’t prepared, not one bit but I remembered the list of brands and then began the search. Every brand so far has been so boring, no color, and no fancy logo… until I searched up the word DESIGUAL. Not knowing what would pop up I hoped that this search would end faster. I found it! I found my brand, the most colorful and playful looking logo, the most bazaar clothing lines.

Review day 2 was here and as usual the work I had done was minimal, I was seated in class at least a good 15 minutes before class started and I started researching and researching and researching. Little did I know that a poster I saw when I was about 11 and fell in love with was a part of this brand! The excitement kicked in and after the review we were told that we need to have done 30 A3 sheets of research for the next class … in a week, 30 pages?! ARE THEY CRAZY??

Research moved along and soon it was time to break for Avurudu Celebrations (Sinhala and Tamil New year), 2 weeks to complete the research pages and to come up with a concept. Concept? What on earth is a concept? Every time I heard the word I would get a headache because I wasn’t sure what I was headed for … and it scared me.

It’s almost time to get back to college, and all I did at home was sleep and play with my dog… *queue the stress*…. It’s Sunday night and my phone is blowing up, turns out that most of the class is in my situation... sigh of relief? NO. I need to get my work done or else I won’t be able to catch up. Hours past by and I seemed to be getting work done pretty fast and neat, I like where I was heading. The next morning arrives; it’s time for another review, “HOORAY”.

I still hadn’t thought about a concept, what was I going to do? … The next review was mine, think shenuka, THINK! ….. I couldn’t come up with anything, I was just so confused, I still didn’t know what I had to do… but… KIKE TO THE RESCUEEEE!

Kike is literally a life saver, all he had to ask me was what my brand meant to me and how I would want Sri Lankan to see and boom I had an idea. So my concept was based on uniqueness, to me Desigual meant being unique, being able to be comfortable in your own skin, in your favorite type of clothing no matter what other people say you should always be confident because you’re YOU and you are beautiful.

So one I came up with concept it was time to weave it into to m store, how was I to add uniqueness to my store? What does being unique mean to me, how would I express it? Many questions I had to face during the last couple of weeks. Floor plans were needed but everything just wasn’t falling into place I had so much more to do, would I be able to finish it?

It was the week before the submission and all I had was a half complete model, incomplete development book and a concept with no concept model… I hadn’t even thought about my presentation boards. To add to the stress my mother had to leave the country for some business work and that very week my sister was down with dengue fever and wasn’t doing very well, I spent at least 4 days just in hospital not being able to do any proper work and it only seemed to stress me more. Stress levels were reaching a whole new level and I just didn’t know how to handle it, I wanted to give up, I just wanted to stop everything.

I have so much more to do, my floor plans aren’t completed because parts of it are missing, MY WORK IS JUST NEVER GOING TO FINISH!!! Stress levels are rising again, its Friday night, submission in on Monday and I haven’t started on my presentation boards, and OMG where do I get presentation board printed?? Shops will be closed on Sunday and they close early on Saturday, worst nightmare comes true. After painful hours on the computer and drawing floor plans I finally was able to find a shop that was opened on a Sunday, maybe there was hope!

Monday morning arrives and submission deadline is at 12pm, its 9am and I’m still doing work and I still have so much to do! But I see the finish line, I CAN DO THIS!

I arrive at college and I’m able to submit everything on time

What I learnt from this experience is that I am capable of getting my work done and it being neat its just that I have to be very organized and improve drastically on my time management  and stress levels. This project opened my eyes to the actual world of design and how tough and time consuming it can be but after all I’m in college to learn and gain experience and I don’t think any other project would’ve ever taught me the things my retail project experience taught me and for that I’m ever so grateful and I only intend on improving!

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Helvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with input from Eduard Hoffmann.

It is a neo-grotesque or realist design, one influenced by the famous 19th century typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk and other German and Swiss designs. Its use became a hallmark of the International Typographic Style that emerged from the work of Swiss designers in the 1950s and 60s, becoming one of the most popular typefaces of the 20th century. Over the years, a wide range of variants have been released in different weights, widths and sizes, as well as matching designs for a range of non-Latin alphabets. Notable features of Helvetica as originally designed include the termination of all strokes on horizontal or vertical lines and unusually tight letter spacing, which give it a dense, compact appearance.

Characteristics

1) Tall x-height, which makes it easier to read in smaller sizes and at distance

2)  Quite tight spacing between letters

3)  An oblique rather than italic style, a common feature of almost all grotesque      and neo-grotesque typefaces.

4) Narrow t and f.

5) Square-looking s.

6) Bracketed top flag of 1.

7) Rounded off square tail of R.

8) Concave curved stem of 7

9) Two-storied a (with curves of bowl and of stem), a standard neo-grotesque feature

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Think big!

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Cutest little shop on a corner of the 2nd floor of Paragon Mall, Singapore🙈 The lighting and attention to little details is what really caught my eye and made me walk back to the store to take this picture!

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Richmond Castle, Sri Lanka.

Built to prove that Sri Lankans were equally capable of building structures just like the Indians.

The couple who owned the castle had no children instead they had statues of children in their garden and they'd look at them throughout the day.

This hall in itself is very creaky and old now but has extremely detailed wood carving on the pillars.

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Geoffrey Bawa’s No.11 House in Colombo.

Possibly Sri Lanka's most famous contemporary architect, Geoffrey Bawa was the genius behind tropical modernism, and many of Colombo's most beautiful contemporary designs.

Number 11 was Bawa's residence in Colpetty. He bought one house on 33rd lane in 1958, then slowly bought the surrounding cottages to create one unified structure. It was a labour of love that took about a decade, what the Trust website calls "an essay in architectural bricollage".

You also get to see a lot of Bawa's own living spaces, including his dining room, living, room and bedroom, along with pieces that he collected over the years. Apart from the antiques and art, you'll also find touches of his actual life, including silly inflatable pool chairs, books, and movies.

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Here are many pictures of the Fritz Hansen showroom in Singapore.

What i liked the most was how simple yet sophisticated the furniture looked and how well organized each furniture would be.

The book racks are multi-functional, the glass table gives a very abstract feel to the place it has been set in.

All in all its an experience that I wouldn't change!

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We visited the Fritz Hansen showroom when we visited Singapore on our study tour this year We were greeted by the store manager who gave us an detailed explanation of the store and it’s brand

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A group assignment that we had to present within 3 weeks.

pick a designer and an artist, pick a product from each and find a way for it to work together and create a whole new product.

Our chair was called POP-ROCKER due to the inspiration from pop art and a rocking chair 

There were many challenges but we got through it!

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A mural that had drawn on a wall within the complex of Geoffrey Bawa’s Bungalow in Lunuganga

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I visited Bentota as a study tour with my batch-mates in order to observe a furniture work shop, where they manufacture furniture designs.I learned about the complex process of manufacturing a chair from the initial stages of freshly cut timber to final product. 1)Selection of the suitable timber for the chair must be done.

2)The timber should be seasoned by natural means or by any other method. 

3) Technical drawings of the chair should be done for the production of the chair.

4)Timber is then cut accordingly. 

5)Different parts of the chair will now be connected by screws, joints and industrial glue. 

6)when finishing of the chair it should be first sand papered to be made smooth, then a top coat is applied.

Gaining experiences like this are very rare and therefore i take a lot of interest in them.

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Antoni Gaudi inspired work, found in the National Art Museum of Singapore 

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Ilse Crawford

Ilse Crawford is a designer, academic and creative director with a simple mission to put human needs and desires at the centre of all that she does. As founder of Studioilse, together with her multi-disciplinary, London-based team, she brings her philosophy to life. This means creating environments where humans feel comfortable; public spaces that make people feel at home and homes that are habitable and make sense for the people who live in them. It means designing furniture and products that support and enhance human behaviour and actions in everyday life. It means restoring the human balance in brands and businesses that have lost their way. As founder of the department of Man and Wellbeing at the Design Academy Eindhoven, her mission extends to nurturing a new generation of students to always question why and how their work improves the reality of life.

  

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Sagrada Família 

The style of la Sagrada Família is variously likened to Spanish Late Gothic, Catalan Modernism and to Art Nouveau or Catalan Noucentisme. While the Sagrada Família falls within the Art Nouveau period, Nikolaus Pevsner points out that, along with Charles Rennie Macintosh in Glasgow, Gaudí carried the Art Nouveau style far beyond its usual application as a surface decoration.

Gaudí died while still working on the Sagrada Familia on June 10, 1926, in Barcelona, Spain. He died after getting hit by a trolley car in Barcelona, only a few weeks shy of his 74th birthday. While the structure remained unfinished at his death in 1926 only one transept with one of four towers was built the extraordinary structure has a final completion target date of 2026, to mark the 100th anniversary of his passing.

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The most colorful works of Antoni Gaudi.

The shapes and forms the buildings take are very fascinating and mesmerizing!

Always wanted to visit spain.

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PEDRO E INÊS

The Pedro e Inês footbridge in Coimbra, Portugal, gives the illusion of stopping mid-air in a thrilling architectural gesture that at first glance appears impossible.

Like a lightning strike, the bridge is an expression of direct energy. A ‘cut’ traverses the bridge deck at its midpoint, generating a space at the center of the bridge of architectural and structural tension. As a result, the bridge is transformed from a connection between two points into a destination itself. Shifting horizons and the rhythm of the colors of the balustrade oscillate through one’s senses. What usually serves as merely a conduit becomes a territory for narrative, like the bittersweet legend of Portuguese king-to-be Pedro and his beloved lady-in-waiting Inês, from whom the bridge takes its name

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My first ever Retail project.

The brand i chose was Desigual and over a time span of a couple of weeks I was able to pull this off and I couldn't be more excited!