Le Marché Duty Free, Calais France

Project Summary

Barber was tasked with designing the concept, branding, and interior design for the retail experiences at two locations in Calais, for the Eurotunnel LeShuttle passengers as part of a tender response for the Eurotunnel brand.

Project Details

Working in collaboration with our client Ospree Duty Free, we successfully won the Duty Free tender and therefore Barber have been appointed to deliver the innovative travel retail concept to fruition.

The concept “Le Marché Duty Free” in terms of naming and branding is your French market, delivering quality ingredients and delights to take back home. Your memories of your journey through France can therefore, last a little longer. The font, brand design and palette shows a modern, bold and European brand, it feels classic yet fresh and new.

Following the brand and initial retail concept ideation, we then started to develop the store environment and customer experience.  “Le Marche”, the main customer store in Coquelles near Calais will occupy 800 SQM of duty-free space within the Passenger Terminal building.

As seen in the concept visuals, the interior design scheme is inspired by French markets, produce is abundant, the customer experience is luxurious, showcasing the best of French produce. From macaroons to cheese, wine and mustard it will be hard not to stop and pop a piece of France in your basket.

The interior design scheme uses a clean white and navy colour palette, complemented by homely wooden textures reminiscent of food baskets and hampers.

Barber also designed the initial new customer experience that launched earlier in 2024 which was the 75 SQM HGV duty-free store, the first of its kind.

This initial ‘Truck Shop’ footprint introduces some design details of the new Le Marche retail concept.

The Le Marche Duty Free Truck Shop also has the following design principles; the colour palette is a white neutral background with dark navy highlights and there’s a small tile mosaic. Some of the highlights use a texture; a metal basket-style grid is used to highlight the category signage across the stores.

Client Feedback

Doug Barber of Barber Design Consultancy said “This impressive rail journey travels from Calais to Folkestone, carrying around 10 million passengers a year and back again, many customers are travelling for vacations or work. A mix of families, business people, adventurers, and the elderly all need catering for, and all have different customer journeys. Our in-depth research and design strategy allowed us to work closely with our client and create a customer focussed winning bit for this prestigious Duty Free tender. We are delighted to be part of the journey to deliver an outstanding retail experience for our client Ospree Duty Free and Eurotunnel.

The new retail offering in Calais across these two sites named ‘Le Marche’, will offer the best of France. The design is inspired by what a range of different customer types need and want at this point in their journey. We aim to deliver the authenticity of a French market with unique, modern design features that allow a large number of customers to browse and shop easily during peak travel times. We can’t wait to share more as the project develops.”

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