Friday, June 24, 2011

Retail Theatre ... literally

In an appropriate response to the rising retail trend, Urban Outfitters has taken a more literal approach to the concept of retail theatre and customer experience. Refurbishing an unused theatre in Stockholm, the apparel store left the original facade largely untouched. The result is a truly experiential journey, from entry to exit.























Friday, June 17, 2011

Friday, June 10, 2011

e2 Creative Day

For our quarterly creative day, the team split into four groups and decided on an activity of their choice for the afternoon. Some went to the Bondi Winter Festival; others sketched along their walk to Manly. The only group who came back with photos were those who visited Cockatoo Island... We suspect the others lost theirs at the pub.







Friday, June 3, 2011

Best Retail Design in the Asia Pacific

In Shanghai this week, our design of the OPSM Eye Hub received the award for Best Retail Design in Asia Pacific at the Asia Pacific Property Awards.

As the highest scoring design in the retail category, Eye Hub will now take the international stage, representing Asia Pacific at the International Property Awards in London this December. We will compete against winners from Europe, Africa, the Americas and Arabia, for the title of World’s Best in Retail Design.

Chris Beer, CEO of Luxottica APAC and China, announced: “When you take a truly exceptional concept like OPSM Eye Hub - with the focus of providing an equally unique and engaging customer experience, the design of the store is paramount. e2 understood what we wanted to achieve – an in store journey that touched each of the five senses. Through this collaboration, together we have delivered an unparalleled customer experience for the optometry sector.”

The Asia Pacific Property Awards are part of the International Property Awards and known to be the world’s most prestigious property competition. A record number of 21 different countries took part in the Asia Pacific Awards this year.

We are proud to be named Australia’s leading retail designer and humbled by the inclusion of our design amongst the world’s best.







For recent more news, please visit our website: www.e-2.com.au

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

BRW Fast Starters 2011

After three and a half years of upward growth, we are proud to be included for a second time on BRW's 2011 Top 100 Fast Starters list. The list recognises Australia’s top start-up companies and is determined by businesses who have made an impact in their particular industry.

Ranked 50, above last year's position at 68, we look forward to what the next year brings in growth and development.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Sestosenso for BMW

In Milan this year, visitors to an installation by London designer Paul Cocksedge at the Milan showroom of lighting brand Flos could view an animation of a BMW 6 Series car only by putting their heads inside a plastic lamp shade.

Called Sestosenso, the installation featured conical lamp shades suspended in a white-walled room. Through the shades visitors can view a movie of the new BMW 6 Series projected on the wall that is invisible to others in the room.






































Friday, May 20, 2011

Food Shopping Destinations

In recent research on the grocery store experience, we have found a few global best practice examples of food retailers doing it right. Wholefoods is amongst the top three. By revolutionising the way customers browse, try and buy, they have transformed their stores into destinations and created an appeal that draws not only a local crowd, but those who come to area specifically to visit a Wholefoods store.

The enormous 6,000 sqm space is one you might come to do your weekly food shop, but it is just as easily a great place to pop in for a quick meal, a beer or a glass of wine:




Friday, May 13, 2011

Heightened Street Theatre

Target’s Kaleidoscope Fashion Spectacular, run on the side of The Standard in New York in 2010, has won Gold at The One Show 2011. The light and fashion extravaganza, featuring 66 dancers, was played out in the windows of 156 rooms with 44,640 LED bulbs, and original music from Sam Spiegel. On the street below models wore new autumn fashion from Target outfitters including Mossimo, Merona, Converse and Liz Lange.




Friday, May 6, 2011

The World Park

The World Park was created by Michael Ferrare, Founder of Agency Magma — a next generation advertising and creative content agency that helps brands explore new and innovative marketing approaches. Magma specialises in integrated media campaigns.

The participate in this event, all you need is a web-enabled smartphone and a Parkode™ or Qr-Code reader. On the day of, you receive a map which helps guide you along an interactive tour of New York's Central Park.

Using the QR-Reader application, you can scan our location-based game codes called Parkodes™ — small digital trees. Each Parkode™ reveals a question relating to its exact location.

Answers come along with entertaining content and information you perhaps never knew about Central Park. Every map has a personal scorecard which you can use to compete with your friends across categories such as: Science & Geology, Pop Culture, Art & Music and History.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Barneys Retail Theatre

Barney’s New York launched their latest fashion range (and accompanying window displays) with an interesting piece of ‘performance art’ by fashion icon Daphne Guinesse. At 5pm local time, one of the Barneys windows turned into a changing room in which Daphne Guinesse changed into one of her outfits before leaving for the prestigious Metropoliton Museum’s Costume Gala event.

The performance was filmed and streamed live. It’s a great piece of retail theatre with an engaging back story - one of the most effective ways to launch a new line:


Friday, April 22, 2011

The e2 Amazing Race

For our quarterly creative day in March, our internals teams staged their own version of "The Amazing Race". Armed with a camera and designated colour, each team was released from the Paddington office with four hours to complete a checklist of findings across the eastern suburbs.

The objective? Quality, not quantity. The more unusual a team's photographs, the more points they would be awarded. There were no restrictions to any one area. Let the team with the best photos win...

With the highest number of creative, bizarre, embarrassing and sometimes dangerous photos, our interiors department team came out on top.

As a result, we now have 197 team photos we will never be able to show anyone. Here are a selected few ...

















































































































Friday, April 15, 2011

The Future of Advertisements

With an audience increasingly disengaged by the usual bombardment of advertising and promotions, a few forward-thinking brands are developing ways to entertain, as well as inform. From the use of projection mapping to living billboards and 3D print methods, we applaud those brands who employ innovation, rather than scale or quantity, to attract our attention.










Friday, April 8, 2011

Cargo Container Housing

Cargo container house plans have come a long way since people first started thinking of ways to to make these industrial boxes work as habitable spaces. While they have always be eco-friendly insofar as they recycle used shipping containers, they have evolved not only along stylistic but also sustainable directions.













Thursday, March 31, 2011

Illusive Environments

For the Fall 2010 Collection, Diesel wanted to create a dynamic and architectural model entrance utilizing metallic and reflective surfaces that would appear to emerge from the vast white-washed cinderblock venue wall.


Friday, March 18, 2011

A Museum for the Old and New

We have been following the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania since its opening in January this year. Designed and funded by David Walsh, MONA exhibits his own favourites from around the world and visitors can enter free of charge.

There are no labels on any of the artworks, instead visitors are given a touch screen MP3 player which can detect where it is in the building and tells you what artworks are nearby; you can read or listen to information about them.

The pieces are laid out in a way that feels uncoordinated; ancient Egyptian mummies are displayed alongside modern multimedia works. This is to show the art works as art, not as a chronological collection of a history of art.










Friday, March 11, 2011

Suspendable Sculpture

Janet Echelman’s 230-foot-long aerial sculpture “1.26” suspends from the roof of the 7-story Denver Art Museum above downtown street traffic to commemorate the inaugural Biennial of the Americas:



Echelman drew inspiration from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s announcement that the February 2010 Chile earthquake shortened the length of the earth’s day by 1.26 microseconds by slightly redistributing the earth’s mass.



Because this monumental sculpture is made entirely of soft materials, it is animated by the wind. Its fluidly moving form contrasts with the rigid surfaces of the surrounding urban architecture. At night, colored lighting transforms the work into a floating, luminous form while darkness conceals the support cables.

Friday, March 4, 2011

‘The Business and Design Mind’




The design and business mind share more in common than many would believe. The perception of the business mind as financially-driven, pragmatic and clinical is founded on our collective experience. From this position, there is little that the design and business minds share in common. However, on deeper investigation there are some key similarities. In these instances it would wise for both business and design minds to apply learnings from each other. This interactive presentation will examine the skills that designers exhibit, namely the ability to simultaneously think on multiple levels in devising a plethora of solutions and in the process determining the best solution from those proposed. During this session, David will lead attendees through a practical exercise which demonstrates the marked differences between these two minds and how both can benefit from understanding each other.


David Grant E2 strategist presents ‘The Business and Design Mind’ at the Brain Art Exhibition, on March 9, 2011 (Free Entry).

12:30 – 2:00
Global Gallery
5 Comber Street
Paddington 2021
Australia

Tickets are $85, but free entry is available as a special offer to e2 blog readers. Get in touch with david@e-2.com.au if you are interested!

Friday, February 25, 2011

American Design Heroes

Form and function. Vision and pragmatism. Agitators and conformists. Wednesday, March 3rd at the American Club Sydney, Alex Ritchie and furniture expert, Alan Boyd, will discuss the impact of three iconic American design heroes: Harley Earl and Charles and Ray Eames.



Click here for tickets.