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held on to their attachment to some of these characters. Thus, a
store ambience was created that was far more sophisticated, in
order to cater to adult tastes. An overview of the Disney and
Warner Bros. prototypes would clearly reveal that their “brand
equity” was character driven. Lighting design for the Warner
Bros. Studio Stores took on a real studio look, so that the adult
patrons could take home a piece of
the Hollywood mystique.
Illuminating Concepts was fortunate
to be part of the creative efforts
of these visionary retail adventures.
Much was learned from having our
team immersed in theme park and
character-driven retailing. A few
simple phrases still reverberate in
our creative studio’s ethos: “If you
have to see the fixture, it had better
fit the theme,” and “Light is part of
the illusion of entertainment.”
In the mid ’90s Nike came
“swooshing” onto the retail scene
with Niketown. The challenge of
creating a location-based outlet for
the brand was greater than that of the
two studio giants; essentially they
had no characters, only a logo. From
IC’s exercise with Nike emerged a
new set of values upon which to
establish a shopping environment.
First, Nike’s image is technical as
well as inspirational. Designing
media delivery systems into their
spaces, along with “morphing” and moving light added to the
shopper’s sense that Nike is technically competent and visionary.
Second, Nike’s interior design scheme wanted to ooze
quality; a means of imparting tangible evidence that Nike’s
products are also of the highest quality. For visible lighting
component selections, industrial high tech, high quality fittings
were the only choices. Concealing
70 percent of the product and ambient
lighting became the trick. This
proved to be a complete reversal of
the methods used by IC for Disney
and Warner Bros.
NBC was a completely different
beast. There are no cartoon characters,
no tangible products and the
consumer base recognizes the network
for its shows rather than for
one cohesive brand. Working with
Guy Pepper from NBC and Eric
Ulfers of Production Design Group,
the team at IC was briefed on the
(top and bottom) Backlighted,
peacock-shaped, ceiling recesses conceal
the ambient light sources. Adjustable
low voltage monopoints used to accent
merchandise and intelligent lights
that spring the space into motion,
provide kinetic accent illumination.
36 LD+A/May 2001 www.iesna.org