In-store graphics
Design for retail may seem like an exercise in branding or beautification, but it’s one of the most exacting sectors around, as Graeme Aymer found out

We can’t get enough of shopping. According to the Office of National Statistics, as of July 2005 the UK’s retail sector employed 2.9 million people, or 11 per cent of the country’s workforce, generating sales worth some £260bn. This year, in August alone, Britons splashed out £4.7bn in the nation’s shops, markets, malls, grocery stores and bazaars.




Potentially, this means pay day for designers happy to design in-store graphics. But this is no simple buy-a-book-and-try-it-out discipline. It requires a conceptual mind, one capable of imagining materials, 2D graphics within a 3D space, and an understanding of how shops work.

On one hand, the graphics guide you, the shopper, to the stuff you need to buy. On another, it’s all about sleight of hand, designed to persuade you to come in and buy things you don’t need, tempting you to act on impulse. Perhaps that’s why it’s so difficult to get right .

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/features/in-store_gra...