Barber Design review of the year 2018

20th December 2018

We’ve had another great year at Barber Design and this week we are taking some time to reflect on some of our achievements over the last 12 months.

Angels in the Dubai Mall

At the beginning of the year we worked with the AW Rostamani Group to redevelop the branding identity for their Dubai-based lifestyle brand Apartment 51. This work was part of a continuing partnership with AW Rostamani and we also redeveloped the brand identity and created a flagship store concept design for their Angels kidswear brand.

Our brief for the store design was to create something child-friendly yet luxurious, eschewing the clashing crayon colours usually associated with children’s stores for a modern, cool, contemporary palette with interactive elements to make the retail experience enjoyable for children and appealing to adults.

The store opened in the Dubai Mall in October and our clients were thrilled with the results:

“We are delighted with our Angels new childrenswear Flagship store concept.  Barber were the perfect team to bring our vision to life. Well done Barber and team for helping bring our vision to reality. We are all very pleased with the end result.”

Angels in the Dubai Mall

Angels in the Dubai mallAngels in the Dubai Mall

In May Doug was asked to moderate a panel discussion on ‘New Store Formats’ at the Retail Design Expo in London. A lively debate ensued with expert panellists Emma Gullick, senior 3D designer for Phoenix Wharf and Caroline Philipson, Head of Store Development for Ann Summers.

Doug at the Retail Design Expo

Also in May we revealed the visuals for our store design concept for Flemingo Duty Free at Macau International Airport in Mumbai – this is part of an ongoing working relationship with Flemingo. We also designed a store concept for them which opened in Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo, Sri-Lanka in July last year.

Alongside this we have been working with Hardings Retail on a number on new retail concepts for onboard cruise ships, still under wraps but we are hoping to bring you news of these exciting projects in the New Year.

August saw the opening of a new £5 million Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre in Nottinghamshire. We developed the retail interior design and customer experience for the new centre – which has rapidly become an iconic new gateway to the area.

Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre

Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre

Sherwood Forest Visitor Centre

In September it was an honour to find ourselves at number 2 on the list of Top 50 RetailDesign Agencies in the World by retail trend spotters, ‘Insider Trends’ who had this to say about our work:

“London-based design agency Barber has almost 20 years’ experience in designing retail environments and brand identities. Its work spans the full range of retail from luxury to fashion to travel to pop-ups for an impressive list of brands including Harrods, Nike, Topshop, Jigsaw and Diesel. We think it’s Barber’s eye for visual merchandising that helps set its concepts apart. We’re not the only ones with the likes of Drapers and Retail Week also recognising its work at their various awards.”

And finally we finished off the year with a bold move – as Doug explains:

“After 19 years of moving clients with some award winning and design around the world, we have decided to move ourselves to larger offices, with a bigger team. Exciting Times indeed!”

We have moved

If you would like to pop in for a catch up or have an idea for a project please get in touch to arrange a meeting at our new Design Studios.

It looks like 2019 is already shaping up to be a good year for Barber. We are going to hit the ground running, with several projects already underway with our client a  large duty free retailer in Mumbai and a new concept for a  London-based popcorn startup. We are also finalising an exciting retail project with long-term client Neal’s Yard Remedies at London Bridge and we have been working on  very exciting project with the ‘Southern co-op’  which is due to launch in January 2019 and will bring you more news then.

If you’d like to find out more about what we are getting up to throughout the year you can follow our progress here on the blog and Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to see what’s new.

And finally – we would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New Year from everyone at Barber Design!