Designing Retail Experience in the 21st Century

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Covering the period of 2001 to the present, Designing Retail Experience presents readers with a critical, cross-disciplinary perspective on retail design, bringing together scholarship from design, architecture, branding, cultural studies and social studies. Our retail experience has changed profoundly over the past two decades, in large part due to the impact of digital technology. While the rise of smartphones and online commerce threatened to displace bricks and mortar stores, physical shopping has survived and, in some cases, thrived. Today, the most successful global brands design experiences that engage customers both within the physical store and in the digital realm, and within this book, D.J. Huppatz analyses how corporations design these experiences, how we interact with them, and how they align with broader social, cultural and economic changes. Nine case studies reveal how some of the largest global retail chains, including Apple, Amazon, Nike, Primark, IKEA and LEGO, smaller chains such as Aesop and Gentle Monster, and virtual stores such as Shein, utilize design. Unlike in the past, such corporations consider design in a continuum that extends from architecture and interiors to product and service design, and from website and digital interactions to social media. At the intersection of design and cultural studies, this book provides a critical survey and understanding of design and retail experience in the 21st century.

Reviews

This is an essential book that expertly illuminates the countless ideas and the myriad of complexities that are woven together to form the branded-spatial and digital experiences that so much of our lives are spent within. * Graeme Brooker, Royal College of Art, UK *
The book offers a vivid mix of case study descriptions, retail histories, analyses of brand values and design strategies that reveal how interwoven online and in-person shopping has become. The authors critical stance elevates this book beyond a how to manual. It is distinctive and refreshing in outlining urgent challenges and opportunities. * Tricia Austin, Central Saint Martins University of the Arts London, UK *
Thought-provoking and instructive, this book highlights familiar and less familiar stories from every corner of modern global retail, to form a comprehensive study of how the experience economy has effectively impacted on our shopping and continues to shape our lives as consumers. An insightful and useful book. * Peder Valle, University of Oslo, Norway *

Author Bio

D.J. Huppatz is Associate Professor, Architectural and Industrial Design, School of Design and Architecture, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. Previously, he was Professor of Design History at Pratt Institute, USA. He has published widely in edited books and journals and his publications with Bloomsbury include Design: The Key Concepts (2020), Modern Asian Design (2018) and Design: Critical and Primary Sources (2016). He has also written articles for the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design and the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Asian Design.