I am_

Concept Store

Shop! Future! Now!

Future Retail - Autumn 2015

Introduction
Economic Research

Social Research

Culture Research

Shaping Culture
Through Retail
Group Research

Initial research exploring the core drivers for an interesting and

relevant retail experience, leading to the identification of retail
themes for group focus.
Gender

Discovering Themes: In the initial

stages of this project as a class we devised
a research strategy to accumulate and share
initial desk research findings to give ourselves
greater knowledge of the retail sector.
Splitting into three groups of between 4-5
people, we researched the following areas;
Economic, Social and Cultural, the latter the
focus for my group.

Through collaborative research, we were

able to cover more ground of a complex
sector and discover interesting grey areas
that would lead to potential opportunities.
Key findings included demographics and
the evolution of generations, the perception
of identity, data as a material. From this
we identified three areas of further design
opportunity and refined group focus.

Group1

Virtual Reality

Our Focus Area

Prosthetics

Group 2

Exploring The Re-imagination of VR

Inspiration: As we built towards a design

concept we imagined a hyper real antidote

to the virtual world. Focusing on a playful,
lively visual approach to the benefits of the
physical real world. As the line between the
virtual and physical world continues to blur,
we want people to engage in purposefully
with both worlds.
Moving forward we wanted to use VR and
Technology, to bring to life an inanimate
object and add a level of substance and
engagement to a future retail experience.

Fig. 1 Studio Calm + Collected

Fig. 2. Michael Mason She + He

Fig. 4. Studio C + C, S.A.D Campaign

Fig. 3. Ann Veronica Janssens

yellowbluepink-

Focused Development

Technology As A
Platform To Shop
Exploring the use of technology to fit seamlessly into the
customer experience to enrich the shopping experience, both
digitally and physically.

Relationship Between Key Factors

Data

Opportunity:

As we further refined
our area for development we saw the
application of technology in future context
as the most interesting and opportunity
heavy area. Furthermore our reliance with
technology in everyday life is evident to see
and our increasingly connected lives offers
an opportunity for a retail environment to
bring a tangible experience that caters for
our online and offline life.

Direction: From digital objects to digital

worlds we as consumers have become to

expect a sophisticated engagement and
experience in all interactions. The following
areas were identified as platforms for
design opportunity.
-Personal Data
-Smart Clothing
-Virtual Life

Clothing

Coexist Seamlessly
Year: 2035

Virtual Real Life

Concept Generation

Focus Area

Concept 1
Collective Data Based Instore

Concept 2
Clothes That Collect Data

Instore experience that

focuses on tangible moments
to generate a live store

Clothing that captures your

life as you wear it, giving
feedback and visualising
unseen moments

Concept 3
Manage Data Across Platforms

Concept 4
Data Clothes To Create A Story

Digital Ecosystem
becoming the engine for
our shopping experiences.

Translating findings from

personal data reading into a
curated shopping experience.

Using Digital Data: From our

research and refined development it
became apparent that data offers a range
of possibilities to exist within a design
experience.
In relation to the future context in which
we were designing, it was clear that data
could offer the means to communicate an
unknown story to our customer.
Overwhelmed with content in their virtual
reality, individuals may struggle to know
what their desires are authentically. Data
can play a role to visualise sub conscious
behaviour and interests.

Social media will accelerate

Big Data

Online Data

Instore Experience

We will become a data centric

society
We came to expect a collaborative shopping experience
between ourselves and shops

Using data to create a curated

individual shopping experience

Curated Items

Tangible

interactions

Overwhelmed with content in

a virtual life users will look for
a personal and helpful shopping experience

Design Objective: In a society and culture in which our all

actions and experiences can be recorded, the challenge
lies in making a non intrusive and human experience that
inspires the customer to interact with our retail environment.
Our objective is to design a retail environment that
incorporates personal data to create a rich and multi
layered experience.

Refining Concept
Foundations

Crafting A Story
Through Data
Formalising a retail concept that focuses on providing a curated
shopping experience that reflects our customer and how they
use technology.

1. Data Driven
Retail Experience

of

Concept Store:

2. Commercial Space

3. Social

3. Social

online + offline
2. Commercial Space

instore
1. Data Driven Retail Experience

online + offline
Structure

Where We Stand:

Existing in
2035, when our digital and physical social
platforms co exist seamlessly in our daily
lives, reflecting all aspects of our being.
Customers expect to have a collaborative
relationships with their purchases, be it a
creative input, or feedback - something
that they, the citizen, can grow with.

We decode the value hidden in your data

to enable our customers to find things
that they never knew they would love and
need.
I shop therefore I am
I am, therefore I shop

of

Service

We aim to provide a layered and rich retail service that

focuses on the stories of our customers to provide the
exciting and curated stories that sets the foundations for
our retail experience.

Gathering Data

Tangible Data: Whilst the data

generated from the online resources is
core to curating a customer collection, we
felt there was an opportunity to provide
an instore experience that focused on a
tangible and engaging personal interaction
that would generate a more conceptual
and character driven data take.

We viewed the tangible data as the character or personality

on top of cold digital data. This enabled a personal extra
layer to the collecting of data that would involve and engage
the user and resonate as a memorable retail experience.

Application

Sketching

possible

Lab

Sketching

sensory interactions

environments

We knew we wanted to focus on sensory

experiences and what our choices in these
situation reflect about us.

of digital data process

From this we proposed the Sensory Lab,

a special space within our store for our by
appointment customers only.

Analysed

Extracted

Virtual Real Life

Data

Curated Content

Digital environment
in which our customer
exists and lives.

DNA that makes

up our customer,
revealing who they
are and their make

Items selected for

our by appointment
customers based on
info from their data.

Online:

As we began to define the

service of our store it became clear that we
had to define the use of data as a resource
to generate collections.
With focus on the by appointment
customers, we wanted to create a dialogue
with them before receiving their data, in
order have a better customer experience.

Confirm
Appointment
-by us

Share Data

Analyse Data

-by customer

-by us

Testing Key Moment

Building upon the key moment of tangible
data, we were tasked with prototyping this
moment in a workshop in order to generate
feedback and insights of our designed
experience.
For our data we wanted to focus on the
sensory qualities of a product so we created
50+ blocks that were all individual and
focused on various aspects of our sensory
experience, from visuals to touch, to smell
and sound.

Analysis:

For our testing we

asked members of the class and
teaching staff to enter the void and
with little or no guidance, to interact
and fill a box with whatever blocks
they chose.
The results of the prototype exercise
proved to be very successful. From
the feedback we saw that the users
engaged with the blocks as we
intended, with everyone choosing
different blocks for personal
reasons.
A fun and entertaining experience
that
generated
conversation
towards
personal
taste
and
reasoning representing elements
of our character, representing a
personal form of data.

Visual Identity

Calvin Klein

Reformation

Developing a clean and contemporary brand identity would

enable character and personality to take centre stage, whilst
capturing the attention in a culture bombarded with visuals.

Direction:

From this point I took main

responsibility to generate concepts and
mocks of proposed branding. Through
feedback and collaborative agreement I
was able to come up with our identity for
our store as well as its name, which after
many iterations become to be known as, I
am__. We choose this name and our visual
principles to represent the customer being
at the core of our store, and it is their story
and data which creates the narrative.

It became important that the brand values

spoke through the designs, and in order to
do this we felt is was important to design
a simple and striking foundation that our
customers could build upon through visual
images to create the individual stories that
made us unique.
It is worth noting that Calvin Klein also
released a similar campaign over the New
Year in which the story of their customer
dictated the visual content.

I am

I am

Exploring Retail Space and Concepts

Physical Presence:

As our concept
came together it was important to explore
how our store would exist physically for the
pop up event which would be at the end of
this project.
Independent, creatively run concept stores
proved to be the biggest inspirations for
tangible spaces. The sense of personality
and character was important.

Fig 1. Written By,

Fig 2 Dover Street Market

clothing label

Fig 4 Goodhood

Stores such as Dover Street Market

(Fig 2) and Goodhood (Fig 4)
were examples of shops I drew
inspiration from because of their
innovative and creative lifestyle
collections. From exploring stores
like this I was able to discover
brands and labels that were
interesting visually. I liked Written
By (Fig 1) as their label evoked a
story and interest.
From this exploration we wanted
to create an environment that
would give a visual voice to the
range of stories that existed within
our concept.

Executing Final Deliverables

2.
:Data

1.
:Store

Delivering Our
Concept Store
Focusing on the delivery and execution of data
centred concept store I am_.

Who We Are:

At I am_ we are a
collective of data and trend analysts who
specialise in curating personal shopping
and retail experiences. We build our shop
around you, we explore and create exciting
new lines extracted from data, online and
offline, that inspire new collections that act
as the content for our retail adventure.

Overwhelmed with content, consumers can

struggle to know what their desires are
authentically.
Through making personal data tangible
and more personal we aim to visualize,
sub-conscience behaviour and interests,
making our customer the core of our brand.

3.
:Lab

Making A Physical Store

Tangible Touchpoints: In order to
deliver a shopping experience we had to
focus on the assembly of our tangible touch
points in order to create a believable and
refined physical retail experience.
It was important to create a rich retail
environment, from the specially designed
customer wardrobes to the labels on the
clothes. All elements were important and
added to the space in which we created.

Launch Night Event

An immersive and engaging design execution of the I am__

retail experience. From customer wardrobes, to a sensory
experience in the :data lab, we aimed to provide rich and
memorable interaction in our shop environment.

Existing Onwards
Continuing to Live On: In our
store we provide a seasonal catalogue
that enables customers to shop and
order in Best Of collections and pieces
that may have ran out of stock due to
demand previously.Through doing this
we provide a special capture of all the
people and collections that have existed
in our store, ensuring that their stories
live on.
Considering the legacy of our store
enabled us to think about the role of I
am__ would have within society as well
as the effective sections of culture that
would carry our brand values on.

Through existing in our customers everyday life, we have the

opportunity to exist in everyday conversation and inspire new
ways of thinking about retail stores and their role in shaping
culture.
Beyond Glasgow: As well as the

Glasgow store, I am__ can be found in

six other cities around the world, all of
which are inspired by their local people
and traditions. A family of stores, the
doors are always open to get a taste of
new culture and experiences.
Through expanding the I am__ store
to create a network of shops, we were
able to demonstrate our awareness of
a largely globalised world in which we
share many similarities.