The Children's Museum Store, Indianapolis, Indiana
Best Store Design (over $1 million in sales)
Staff -- Gifts and Dec, 2/1/2002 12:00:00 AM
Ordinarily, the very word 'museum' conjures up thoughts of glass-enclosed treasures and artifacts that are untouchable.
While that may be the case where a traditional museum is concerned, it is not necessarily the case at a children's museum. So when it came to designing a new shop, the Children's Museum Store, located in The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, it was agreed the store would foster hands-on learning.
With over 7,000 sq. feet of space—twice the size of the previous store—the design opportunities were as enormous as the additional space; and so were the challenges.
For one, there was the question of how to draw attention to all the new products the store would now be able to market. The challenge was met by incorporating pedestal cubes into the design. The cubes were placed at the front of the store where new merchandise, which comes in daily, could be featured.
The large amount of space allowed for roomy allocation of four distinct 'zones:' science, imagination, kidstuff and arts and crafts, each customized with an appropriate, as well as diversified array of merchandise.
"In each of these four areas there are several fixtures that make these zones special and memorable," says Tiffany Leason, the store's sales and merchandising manager. Many are interactive and lend themselves to a real hands-on environment, she adds.
In the arts and crafts area, for example, there is a palette-shaped art table where the store offers art activities including a projector that displays images to trace on an oversized drawing board. The science zone has a glow-in-the-dark cave where glow merchandise is displayed.
At the front of the store there is a 'command center,' complete with a register at the front and the back of the circular area. "There are four television monitors that play a video we had produced for the store showing kids interacting with the toys that we sell and exploring in general," Leason says.
This video loop covers each of the four zones and when one of the zones has been featured, cubes on the command center light up with the zone's graphics. Neon lights shoot to the location of that zone in the store. The command center doubles as the store's information center.
The kidstuff zone was conceived by the store staff to enable "us to service school groups more efficiently," Leason says, adding that staff is able to direct groups to an area with items not only of interest, but that are within their price range as well.
Customers give the new store and its layout an A-plus, commenting that its size allows for many different choices of product. And the zone's fixtures allow for children to be hands-on, fulfilling the main goal in the store's design.
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