Storefronts and branding

Humans are simple creatures, we likes to recognize ourselves in our environments. We like it cause it makes things more simple, it does not matter if it's in the gym, in a kitchen or in a store. By building up your business with a concept for your brick and mortar storefront you will connect with your customers on an "unconscious" level. This is something that you often see the big brands and chains do - they use the same concept on the design and in the layout of the store, they put product categories and product groups in the same place and in the same part of the stores - no matter if it is in China, Sweden or on Manhattan. This is a good choice to facilitate the shopping experience for your customers. To work with a concept layout and design is something that is particularly more attractive to men, since men have a slightly different behavior when they go around in a store.

Read more about this in previous post about "How men operate in stores".
> Did you miss to read "Storefronts for store in mall - part one"? Read it now!

Branding for brick and mortar stores

Branding is something that is important for all types of business, maybe you run a small business and you feel branding might seem like a waste of time - like it is just another thing to clear in your checklist. But if you ever would start with branding your company or store you will start to see that it is not. Branding acctually is verry important even to small business operations, it will be a good investment and give you more "bang for your buck".

Brick and mortar storefronts

Exterior and fronts for bars and restaurants

For restaurants and bar it is very important to look inviting for passersby, the storefront design should match the interior - the interior should match the exterior. Your clientel should like the atmosphere. You should invest time and money in lighting, exterior and interior. Try to make it unique.

Concept for "The Bar" a restaurant and bar front

Exterior and storefront for shoe store

The front, exterior and interior is also important for shoe stores. Mr Choe and other stores should make it simple, put time and effort in timeless storefront and make the "products" pop-out of the shopping windows.

Concept storefront for a "Mr Choe" a brick and mortar storefront

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Maybe you belive that branding by using a nice storefront isn't important?
Examples on companies who use a concept design and layout for theire stores are:

IKEA, Apple, McDonalds,  Wallmart and many more.
And they all look recognizable!!!

Invest time and money on storefronts

Are you thinking about building a new storefront for your store? Check out these examples I made.
I will add more storefronts to this post during the week.

So how could a new exterior act as a bait for the customers to visit your store?
Before creating these storefront "concepts" I searched for different types of retail stores which have and could benefit from putting even more money, time and effort in working with theire storefronts.

I choosed to try one concept which would work for any store, so I choosed a Swedish lingerie store called Evanette, the luxorius clothing brand "Dolce & Gabbana" and the brand "Berkley" which is a fishing gear brand from the US.

> Continue reading about storefronts (part 2)

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Concept storefront for a lingerie store

Lingerie stores are sexy and attractive, time putting time and effort in your exterior and your window stores will attract a large amount of customers from your street.

Example of a exterior storefront for lingerie store Evanette

Concept storefront for exclusive brand

Example on a exterior storefront made for Dolce & Gabbana

Concept storefront for retail in fishing gears and tools

Example on a exterior storefront for a fishing store - Berkley

Are you going to start with signs and/or signage

This post is for you who seek information, tips and tricks for making signs and signage.

Using signs and billboards to communicate and market messages and products to increase awareness and capture the attention from your customers could be a good investment. To increase the awareness of your store you could either turn to good signs hanging in your stores windows. Either you do it your self or you turn to a professional in making signs and signage. The larger and more exclusive you want your signs to be the more likely it is that you should turn to a professional signage-maker.

Important to think about if you are to do your own signs

Ok, so you've Decided to Be Part of a project to do your own Signs and signage. Here is What You Should Keep in Mind During The Project. Making a professional sign doesnt need to be expensive. By creating a basic template it does not need to be hard or take up much of your time to make changes on your signage. You can spend more time in the beginning on the template and making simple changes to it once in a while.

• Do not over do your signs. Some billboards are full of small pictures, quotes, sale price, product information and other characters that make it difficult for the viewer to read and process diplsays fast enough.
When you do it do it simple - Use one image, use one headline and a bulleted list - that is everything you need for a good and informative sign.
• A sign that you put up in a store window must be even more simpler. The reason for this is that the message must be perceived in a shorter time and that is should create buying signal at even shorter period of time.
• Use few and striking headlines, such as "Sales", "BUY ONE FOR TWO" or any other card that tells you what's happening in your store. The simple rule that you can stick to is that the more time a customer is exposed to the sign, the more information you can fill the plate with.
• Stick to two to three colors. Choose a background color, text color and one color for important keywords
• Make sure that color contrast in the signage is good. Use dark text with light backgrounds for example. The combinations that often are used are white and black, yellow and black, green and white, red and white, white and blue.
• If you are to use your signs in a longer time period, make sure you use a good quality sign. If you are to use the sign on the outside it needs to be in even higher quality
• When you are done with the layout of your sig make sure the placement is perfectly placed, make sure the passerby sees the sign from the angle he comes from.

Getting ideas for signage

If you are not used to making signs and you don't know where to start i recommend you either go look at your competition for som good ideas on how to make you signs, buy some interior design magazines or go visit blogs, Tumblr and Google to look for good exampel on signage.

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"Please don't use these signs"

Have you ever visited a restaurant with a sign hanging over the toilet "Only for paying customers", a fancy store with a "no food or beverages in store" or a retail store selling chairs or beds with a "don't try" sign?

It is important that your signs calls for purchase, putting up negative signs, or signs that affect your customers' buying mood negatively shall not be in your store. Have they already up so you just have to take them down. Your job as a shop owner is not to tell customers what they should do or not do.I understand that many store owners get nervous when little children come in with ice cream or that staff become irritated by people who build mountains with goods they are testing, raises garments from packaging. But the message that you send to other customers is that you do not trust them. If you still, after all, want to make use of these kinds of signs - make sure that you write a gentle, nice text and have a good layout/design on the sign.