Fred Perry "The British Outdoors"

The Great British Outdoors; a brisk walk in the country, a leafy lane, a wooded glade and a pint at the pub - this was what Fred Perry had in mind when they introduced us to their newest shoe designs. Fred Perry were branding a wall in the Size shoe store, displaying this collection. When their VM team briefed me, I was excited about the theme; being a lover of the British countryside. Our designers came up with the fantastic idea to clad the entire wall in Fred Perry tartan check shirts and then ‘patchwork’ with reclaimed wood panels in various shapes and sizes. Engraved logos and wooden shelving further enhanced the display. The overall impact had a barnyard flavour while maintaining the fashion sensibility of Fred Perry. We loved it!

M35 Marketing Conference: Monterrey Mexico

I was somewhat honoured to be asked to be the opening speaker for an annual conference, which students of the Tecnologico De Monterrey University hold every year. And I’m always up for travelling to far flung cities I’ve never been to. I do have some experience of lecturing but this time, it was to an audience of over a thousand guests (gulp!). “Strong beginning, strong end,” I thought; so I decided to make a couple of films and beg favours from my network of retail experts.

The conference, held on the 20^th October, invites specialists from various marketing sectors and I was grateful that retail display is such a visual medium. Lots of slides! Rushing around London, I filmed rough clips of the best windows and in-store displays, I could find. This I would edit into a fast-paced, collage set to the Petula Clark hit, “Downtown”, to kick off my talk. Then I interviewed around 8 industry ‘stars’ to give the audience many different perspectives and opinions about shopping as an entertaining, leisure activity, to end on.

In between, I was able to use one of our recent projects, for Westfield Stratford, as a perfect case study to demonstrate entertaining windows which, in this case, had no branding and no marketing message, as such. I talked about how shopping has to be experiential and how hard retailers with similar product offers have to compete, to win the loyalty of an evermore savvy consumer.

Truly surprising myself, I relaxed into the situation, and quickly felt at ease on stage. The students asked me intelligent questions towards the end and made me feel extremely appreciated. What more could I want? Gorgeous sunny weather, a hotel with a rooftop pool, a chauffeur to show me the town, exquisite Mexican food and luckily, 3 seats to spread myself out on, on the return flight home.

Museum of Islamic Arts, Qatar

After the successful job of upgrading the gift shop for the Museum of Islamic Art, in Qatar, Elemental were invited back to design and produce the new furniture concept, for a new gift shop in a recently built annex to the Museum. The Al Riwaq building has been built to host international art exhibitions. Having a glass facade, we wanted to make a strong statement as visitors approached the store.

The brief required the gift shop to be contemporary and minimal; furniture had to be free standing and display everything, from books to stationary. They required a prominent till point, low level display cabinets, tall bookcases and customer seating. Elemental’s design team presented 3 different concepts to the client, who chose a design that centered around square columns, staggered in height.  

It was really exciting to see the sketches come to life in our workshops and then, to travel over 4,000 miles to Doha and see the furniture in situ. A team of carpenters worked for a week installing the striking fixtures, creating a signature look to the exclusive gift store.

Benefit at Bestival

If you were to see a rock star, pop star or diva…what would you see? 

Well, a rock star would have a smokey eye and dewy skin. A pop star- pink shimmery cheeks and pink glossy lips. The Diva- gold shimmer to the temples and cheekbones, focusing on lashes and brows with red lip.

Mix all three hipsters together and what do you get? None other then Benefit cosmetics at Bestival in the Isle of Wight, that’s what!

Bestival throw a killer party every year on this little island in England, where 1000’s of festival goers sleep in tents and enjoy mega bands on a huge stage.

Benefit cosmetics joined in the fun this year by building a girls (or guys) dream spot. Whether you felt in the mood to rock out, or glam up… Benefit was there to make you look incredible!

Benefit’s Garden of Gorgeous was fully equipped with a white picket fence, beautiful floral archways greeting all with big open arms and loads of GIANT outdoor games!

While you wait to rock your new look, play a friendly game of giant jenga or giant connect 4 complete with Benefit gabby heads plastered all over the coins; and of course we can’t forget about the bespoke handmade “they’re real” and “bad gal lash” mascara’s hoopla!

Make your way into the Garden of Gorgeous tent and there you will find beautiful displays of Benefit make-up in pale pink bird cages, pearl cake holders and branded wood crates. The make-uppers where you sat to be properly “glamed up” were a stunning cool cream with eye popping make-up stacked on the shelves.

Elemental Design worked directly with Benefit cosmetics to design, create and install their dream party. We successfully brought their gorgeous garden to life and to be honest… we would do it all again in a heart beat!