Inspiration Magazine: Inspiration

Useful tips and resources prepared by business, industry and design experts to help retailers grow their businesses!

Chicago – Inspiration by Culture

From the bottom of the sea to the tops of the stars, Chicago culture has it all on display. The Downtown Museum Campus is home to three great attractions: the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. For art lovers, the Art Institute of Chicago offers masterpieces from ancient to ultra-modern, and the various other cultural institutions…

Chicago – Inspiration by Restaurants

by Michelle Hespe Celebrity chefs, world-renowned restaurants, ethnic dining from around the globe. Chicago's dining scene is unparalleled and interesting even from a design and architecture point of view. Appetite for Design is a fantastic initiative created by the Chicago Architecture Foundation, marrying great design and architecture with innovative dishes…

The Art and Heart of Branding – Adrienne Weiss

Adrienne Weiss and her team are legendary in branding in the U.S. and around the world. If you have eaten a burger or a donut, bought jeans or pumped your own gas, you have probably been up close and personal with brands they have helped create or energize. Weiss’s branding prowess started when she worked for Applause and helped build the “Smurfs” into a monster global brand in…

Inspiring the Industry – Adrienne Weiss

Adrienne Weiss is an inspiration to everyone she meets and especially those with whom she works. Her portfolio reads like a who’s who of the world’s top companies, and she’s worked with a huge diversity of industries such as food and beverage, retail, consumer products, convenience stores, real estate developments, sports stadiums and entertainment concepts. Her goal in…

Chicago – Inspiration by Architecture

Anyone who has been to Chicago will tell you that the Chicago architecture is the thing that grabs your attention. Take a stroll by foot or an architectural tour by boat along the Chicago River through downtown Chicago, and you’ll start to understand why architects and designers have chosen to make their mark in this city. Take the Aqua  skyscraper in the  Lakeshore East…

The Color Game

Michelle Hespe chats with Leatrice Eiseman, Pantone Color Institute’s Executive Director, about her view on the cycles of color and how to decide on what is best for your business. It was once commonly said that fashion, and thus trends and colors, had a 10-year cycle, but in today’s world, that’s really no longer the case. As a global consciousness of the environment and…

Inspiring the Industry

Michelle Hespe chats with Wolfgang Gruschwitz about how and where he finds inspiration in the world around us. Wolfgang Gruschwitz is the owner and managing director of the Gruschwitz Corporation, which offers full-service retail store design and visual merchandising expertise to retailers. His company has high profile clients such as ZARA and Burberry, and he also lectures…