You arrive at this gorgeous, white gleaming building that oozes old-school architecture.

But the beauty of the museum is that once you’ve walked in off the street, it’s a completely different story.  Because behind the Georgian facade there’s a world of past and future waiting for you.

The top floor has been commandeered by the curators and turned into a vision of what every Seventies school child dreamed space was going to be like. Curvilinear, eggshell white walls with shapes cut out of them divide the room into themed spaces. There is chrome, there is glass, there are lots of television screens, all of which are set inside the wall spaces to make them look more space age and mysterious.

Things bleep and whir and there are many buttons to press. It is all very exciting, and at the end of a few months it will all be packed away, taken to another historically inappropriate building and rebuilt, to delight the hearts of another set of excitable school children and their equally enthusiastic parents.

If your business requires temporary structures that have style, functionality and a sense of permanency until the day they need to be taken down, then contact Design4Retail today. They might even throw in a Buck Rogers in the Twenty First Century poster if you’re really lucky.

Aveda, the international, ethical beauty brand have now got more than a little presence in Leicester, with the biggest independently owned Aveda salon in Europe in Leicester’s Highcross shopping centre.

Called Form, it is the result of a partnership between local, Leicestershire couple Holly and Nigel Shaw, and Aveda. With a 4000 square foot space to fill, the design and layout of the building were always going to be crucial to its success.

Aveda have a very strong brand image, tending towards a stripped down, almost elemental approach to their salons, with plenty of wood, stone, glass and metal on display:

a design ethic that fits with their philosophy and business practices.

Nigel and Holly have incorporated elements of this design into their salon. They also endorse the beliefs that sit behind it, sourcing renewable materials from Ghana, and dealing directly with local people in the spirit of fair trade. They have managed to meld their own distinctive style and the instantly recognisable Aveda brand together harmoniously and with beautiful results.

Their belief in fair trade also extends to their customers. The salon is fully wheelchair accessible, and has packages that cater for all ethnicities and ages. Their inclusive policies are sure to bring them plenty of repeat custom.

Now you may not have the room to host a cat walk event of your own, but offering a personal shopping service, or advice on how to dress right for your shape can be just as much of a draw to the average woman keen to look her best.

The extra space gives potential customers time to peruse the menu, unpressured by other pavement users who might ordinarily jostle them. It also gives a taste what to expect inside and sets the scene for an eating experience outside of your standard, English fare.

The use of fabric to create a sense of mystery, or to even create the illusion of rooms within rooms is something that can really customise your commercial space, and which can be simple, quick and effective while still giving stunning results aesthetically.

Based in huge premises at Borough Market in London, Vinopolis are experts in exploiting their space to its best commercial potential. Built under a viaduct at Bank End, they took the original two and a half acre site and transformed it, using the best ideas in retail design, from waste ground with disused tunnels running through it into seven different entertaining spaces and four highly acclaimed restaurants.

Vinopolis can host functions for up to seven hundred and fifty people, down to intimate meetings for a handful of participants. They run wine tours, exhibitions and master classes in wine and cheese tasting, as well as offering specialist cocktails in their dedicated Bombay Sapphire Blue Room.

Each area has benefitted from expert retail design to create unique and effec-tive commercial spaces which cater for the entire gamut of Vinopolis’ activities. The Bombay Sapphire Blue Room showcases a stupendous blue jewel like bar, which mimics the Bombay Sapphire bottle itself, and allows pools of blue light to spill across the stark, white floor. The panelled windows on the opposite wall drop contrasting light patterns across the rest of the floor and wall space to create a room which changes in mood as the day progresses. Sleek zinc shelving behind the bar nods to the traditional French bar furniture, whilst its styling offers a contemporary, hard edged finish to complement the icy jewel tones of the rest of the room.

The Laughter Lounge takes place in the arched brick built caverns of the viaduct. The space is big enough to seat several hundred diners, so the acts can work up a real buzz with their audience, and the warmth of the bespoke lighting created by Vinopolis’ own in house company, and the shadows cast by the arches themselves give a real sense of theatre and create an illusion of inti-macy so that rapport can be maintained.

Vinopolis have shown how to take a vast industrial space and turn it into a bespoke commercial venture using retail design skills and interiors, and we love that because as a retail design agency these are the kind of things we love turning large, commercial spaces into the perfect retail venues.

It doesn’t take a lot to transform a place, just a bit of imagination.

For example, the commercial space you have might not be as big as the space you want. What do you do? There are various ways you can get around this. You can use clever storage solutions like hanging things from ceilings, using shelves as room dividers and knocking down walls, or simply knocking through into next door, all of which can be really effective, although the next door thing might be a little illegal.

Another way of doing it is to appropriate your pavement space. Awnings do this to a certain extent. They can advertise your business, provide shelter for sun dazzled or rain soaked would be customers, and give shade so that your window display gets seen without any pesky glare obscuring all your hard work. Outside tables displaying wares also do this, although unless you have a flower shop or an antique shop this is basically an invitation to shoplifters.

If you need advice on improving your retail store or commercial property give us a call, we’ll be more than happy to have a chat.

Lighting can also be used aesthetically as a design statement. Frozen ice cream shops, Snog, use their rippling, candy coloured ceiling lights to create a total fairyland wow factor. Cocoon, (www.cocoon-restaurants.com) an award winning, pan – Asian restaurant off Regent Street in London, has taken the traditional oriental paper lantern and given it a contemporary twist to create a stunning window display.

The lights work on many levels, giving a sense of warmth and intimacy, of welcome, and the promise of something exciting within. The carefully chosen shape of the shades also calls to mind the shape of cocoons themselves, promising to hatch into something splendid and exotic, and judging by the interior, it certainly delivers.

Floor to ceiling shelves behind the main window display offer some of the more tempting table ware, with a wide range of products by domestic goddesses Emma Bridgewater and Nigella Lawson. Their cool, retro colour ways are showcased against simple white shelving which is wide and deep enough to allow for uncluttered displays where the customer can get to the items without worrying about having to pay for any unwitting breakages.

The higher shelves which the public cannot reach, are used more for aesthetic displays, like the forest of candy coloured retro cake stands that sprout up to the ceiling, showing themselves to their best advantage.

Although this is a shop for the serious cook, the company are not afraid to show their frivolous side, or their more child friendly wares. Cookie cutters and the more robust pieces are placed on wall racks and displays nearer to interested children’s eyes and fingers. In the window display they have created a child sized model chef clad in appealing gingerbread man themed chef’s outfit, hooking in young consumers as well as their parents.

A large portion of the shop is dedicated to displaying baking materials. A clever touch to hook in the sporadic birthday baker who may need specific, expensive items but not wish to buy them outright, is the inclusion of a rental section for those one off celebrations.

The Original Cookware Company have pulled off their expansion without los-ing their charm or accessibility through clever use of display units and shelving that is practical, comprehensive and suited to purpose. As a result the shop feels like it offers everything the aspiring chef needs without being cluttered or intimidating. If you are expanding to larger commercial premises and need to retain your original winning formula but adapt it to fit new spaces call Design4Retail for details of how they can help you.

The new restaurant was called Studio East, and was created by hauling a shipping container 35 metres onto the roof to site the kitchen, whilst construct-ing a series of timber framed, open ended structures filled with giant trestle tables to seat 120 diners at a sitting, all designed by award winning architect Carmody Groarke.

Chef, Tom Collins, focused on providing a seasonal menu for the three weeks of the restaurant’s existence, and diners were able to sample the best of British ingredients whilst feasting their eyes on the stunning views of the 2012 Olympic site being built below them. Dining has never been so chic, or so precarious.

Pop up shops are becoming increasingly popular, both as sites for individual projects and promotions within an existing commercial space, or as stand alone structures for more avant garde retail projects you may wish to pursue. We know because we have extensive experience of building and fitting out pop up environments.

Take this marvellous 1940’s hat, perfectly styled on a marvellous 1940’s head:

It’s enough to make you snuggle up on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon with a hanky, a pot of tea and Brief Encounter on the television.

The whole window is an homage to the enthusiasm, dedication and vision of the staff and owners who make the shop such a unique and wonderful treasure.

Design4Retail can help you if you have vintage products which need period shop fittings to bring out their shine, whether it be helping you to source original fittings and installing them, or recreating vintage displays using modern methods.