Just a stone’s throw away from the Barber Design offices, the world-famous 2012 Wimbledon All England Lawn Tennis Championships are taking place as we speak.

On Monday we were saddened to see former five-time champion and office favourite Venus Williams go crashing out in straight sets during the first round. Sadly Venus was diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome – an autoimmune disease last year, but despite this illness, Venus has continued to play and worked hard on her ranking in order to be able to play tennis at this summer’s London Olympics, which will also be held at Wimbledon.

We hope Venus is feeling better in time for that game, but if not she has a number of business interests to fall back on, including her own interior design business – V Starr Interiors, set up in 2002. V Starr’s aim is to create exceptional environments that meet each client’s unique project specifications. In addition to residential interiors, their team have completed a number of successful commercial interior design projects, although as yet they haven’t ventured into retail design. Hopefully they will leave that to us because we certainly don’t have anyone in the Barber Design office that can step into Venus Williams’ shoes on the tennis court quite yet…although one of our retail interior designers; Kate, is getting rather nifty with a racket these days!

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Pop-up retail is hot right now – a trend reflected in this topical sculpture by Chinese artist Kacey Wong. This artwork is inspired by the resourcefulness of local  ’hawkers’ who sell food  on the streets of Hong Kong – often without a licence, meaning they need to be able to pack up and run very rapidly whilst also effectively displaying their wares when they are open for business. Wong’s functional piece of art consists of wooden planters growing wheatgrass and racks of apples, which can be squeezed together to make nutritious juice.

For one of Barber’s more high profile pop-up store designs check out 55DSL Diesel’s store at Boxpark.

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Our ongoing professional relationship with Nike – the most talked-about brand of the London 2012 Olympics – is stronger than ever this week as Barber Design have just signed on for more very exciting new projects. Nike have returned to Barber again and again, championing our breadth of knowledge and expertise when it comes to retail interior design for both storefronts and concessions.

Our previous work with Nike has included concession stands for House of Fraser Stores throughout the UK, exhibition stands at the London Marathon and in-store environments for their store in Carnaby Street, London. We have also produced complete interior designs for two of Nike’s flagship individual stores in Brixton and Glasgow along with various display units for Nike Stores and concessions throughout the UK.

Our design for the House of Fraser concessions was inspired by vintage Americana. The use of wooden racks and display units evoked the feel of a school gym locker room and sports podium, infused with a modern twist of clean lines and polished surfaces. The displays are draped with international flags, medals and memorabilia and topped with retro Neon logo-signage.

Again we are unable to release further details of these new projects at present but our design team is very enthusiastic to be working in partnership with Nike again and we will be very pleased to present the results of this innovative retail deign partnership on our blog once the projects are complete.

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Barber Design are very pleased to announce that we have just been commissioned to work on a project with the famous UK-based children’s charity, Barnardo’s.

Founded in 1866 by Thomas Barnardo, the charity is currently involved with more than 800 projects, helping to positively impact the lives or more than 190,000 children and young people in the UK every year. Barnardo’s aim is to bring out the best in every child that they work with – whether that be addressing child poverty, offering support for young carers or providing and administrating fostering and adoption services.

We are very excited to be working with such an important and inspiring cause but aren’t able to release specific details about this new partnership at present – other than it is to be based in Denton, near Manchester. Please watch this space for more information as the project unfolds.

For more information check out Barnardo’s site here.

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Hot off the press this month – a new set of retail design standards developed specifically for Balmain – a specialist shopping centre and retail property investment and asset management company. Our brief for this project was to produce a comprehensive set of retail design guidelines for one of their shopping centres – ‘Galeria Pomorska’ located in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

Balmain acquired the Galeria Pomorska complex in 2004 and since then have made significant developments – attracting previously unrepresented international brands such as H&M, Nike and Adidas. A continuous program of improvement has seen the development of a new food hall and the recent implementation of a wayfinding system within the complex. In line with this program of improvement – and with more than 90 retail units within the shopping centre – Balmain recognised the importance of setting a consistent standard for their retail interiors for both new and existing retail tenants. That’s when they contacted Barber Design – with our proven track record in retail design – for assistance in developing a comprehensive set of guidelines for each store.

Using our specialist knowledge of high quality retail design we worked with Balmain to devise a thorough set of guidelines to satisfy their requirements. The resulting document covers all of the key elements of a modern retail store – including specifications for the shop front design, signage, appropriate lighting and ceiling fittings as well as directives for the shop’s fixtures and wall fittings. They also provide inspiration for interior designs and suggest that all of the retail outlets pay attention to detail.

Following completion, the guidelines were translated into Polish and distributed throughout Galeria Pomorska where they are now being successfully implemented to ensure that the level of presentation amongst all of the stores is consistent and completed to the same high standard.

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Several years ago, office technology services company Teknavo appointed Barber Design to develop their brand identity and website. The brief included the creation of a dynamic logo that reflects the vitality of their attitude to business and the speed at which they perform in the marketplace.

This expression of speed has now appropriately spilled over onto the race track where Teknavo CEO Jay Palmer has ventured into the GT3 European Sports Car Racing Series. Building good customer relationships is very much a core value of our business

and since our initial work with Teknavo, we have continued to work together to fulfil all of their design and branding needs. This put Jay in a position where he felt very comfortable to come back to us and work closely in designing the new racing livery for his Ferrari 485 race car.

Incorporating the dynamic Teknavo logo and corporate colours, the Barber-designed racing livery includes a thick green racing stripe. Trailing upwards from the front valance over the front wheel arch to the rear spoiler, the stripe accentuates the delicious curves of the Ferrari. The design is classic and unobtrusive, shunning the garish colours favoured by some GT3 racers and reflecting Jay’s personal taste whilst also providing a fitting representation of the Teknavo brand.

Find out more about Teknavo at www.teknavo.com

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Every year at the end of May most of the shops in Chelsea – just a couple of miles from the Barber Design London office – produce a visual feast of flower-themed window displays to accompany the Chelsea Flower Show. Now in it’s seventh year the ‘Chelsea in Bloom’ event has become highly competitive as local retailers mount an aesthetic battle for the coveted prize of Best Floral Display.

The theme for this prestigious floral art show this year was, of course, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Thousands of flowers were artfully fashioned into a wide variety of floral sculptures with Union Jacks, soldiers, crowns and bunting featuring prominently in the designs.

Our favourite entry here at Barber Design was this one by DoDo (Pomellato) the Italian jewellers. Why? Well it was big and bold and very ‘on theme’, incorporating lots of red, white and blue along with a subtle hint of self-promotion in the form of topiary cameos of some of DoDo’s more iconic pendant designs. We also like the name DoDo. You can find out more about Chelsea in Bloom here: www.chelseainbloom.co.uk

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