Inspiration Magazine

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

Home Smart Home

By Michelle Hespe Carley Knobloch knows a thing or two about smart homes: She’s consulted with HGTV on their annual HGTV Smart Home build for years, and is a regular tech contributor on the Today Show. Her home, a blend of California cool and high tech, was just featured in Good Housekeeping. To Carley, “A truly smart home is as beautiful as it is intelligent — the gadgets…

Guide to Effective Retail Store Design

by Martin M. Pegler If RETAILING is your chosen path of livelihood, here are some simple guidelines you might like to consider when planning your retail store. 1. Let There Be Light! Without the proper light the merchandise cannot be seen or judged, colors cannot be appreciated, coordinates cannot be assembled, nor buying decisions made. Let your light be the best you can…

Inspiring the Industry: Katrina Markoff

by Michelle Hespe Katrina Markoff is a highly-creative chocolatier and the founder of Vosges Haut-Chocolat, a Chicago-based chocolate maker that inspires people to open their minds and travel the world through chocolate. As is the case with most successful business ventures, there was a defining moment that created the seed from which Vosges Haut-Chocolat would grow…

Reimagined Stores: Why We Need Display

by Martin M. Pegler I recently received a copy of a popular trade magazine, Chain Store Age, that had these words blazoned across the cover: “REIMAGINED STORES.” Though I am not really that active in my chosen field—I am like the proverbial old-time fire horse, let out to pasture, who still responds to the fire alarm sound though the horse has been replaced by trucks—my…

Discovering Design: THAT! Inventions

IHA speaks with Howard Chiu, CEO and co-founder of THAT! Inventions, creator of elegant and functional kitchen and tableware products. When Howard Chiu, Jung-Ya Hsieh and Ta-Wei "Dave" Chien formed the company in 2013, they discovered that they had a common scientific approach to problem solving, based on their experience in practical research and development systems. They…

Inspiring and Expressing Colors: Defining the Essential Trends

by Michelle Hespe Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute and world-renowned color guru, speaks to Inspiration Magazine about how retailers can learn to spot emerging color trends, understand color “moods” and grasp how best to use them to their brand’s advantage. Leatrice has just released her 10th book on color — The Complete Color…

Top Retail Trends for Consumer Engagement

by Michelle Hespe At the 2017 International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago, the four Expert Jurors of the IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) – Wolfgang Gruschwitz, Scott Kohno, Henrik Peter Reisby Nielsen and Anne Kong – revealed the “Top Retail Trends for Consumer Engagement.” The key message from the Expert Jurors was: “Nothing is more important than engaging with…

The Fresh Face of Retail

by Michelle Hespe We speak to Anne Kong, expert juror from the IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia), about fresh trends in sustainable retailing. When brands like Apple make big changes in their approach to retail and branding, you know there’s change a-foot. In Apple’s new stores, the products are still the main drawcard, but the clever place-making is what makes people…

Connected Souls: Housewares Industry Trends by Trend Bible

by Jenna Galley, Insight Editor, Trend Bible Trend Bible is a home and interiors-dedicated forecasting agency working with leading international brands to help them understand the future of their market. They forecast future trends in the behavior of consumers in a two-to-five year timeframe and analyze how this will impact the home environment. A deep connection with the…