Inspiration Magazine

Product Design – The Thrill of Owning an Original

As a store owner, it is a joy to see more people seeking out original product design. They want to know more about a product’s designer and where the product was made. Customers now want the story of the product’s origin and want products of higher value, not necessarily at a higher price. This new trend includes scrutinizing a product’s originality, material, manufacturing…

Casa Palacio – A Palatial Approach

Casa Palacio Santa Fe has a seriously impressive lineage, to its seriously great sense of style. The store’s parent company, department store El Palacio de Hierro, opened its doors in 1888 and has expanded to now operate 13 stores. Casa Palacio is the high-end spin-off store, stocking everything from furniture to designer objects, linen, tableware and fashion. They also offer…

A Picture Worth a Few Hundred Words – Retail Displays

Seeing is believing, and seeing what great retail displays a shadowbox can be is almost un-believable. Grange Interiors in the Aberdeen section of Hong Kong uses simple, four-sided boxes designed by Stefano Tordiglione Design Studio. These boxes are backless and the wall can be seen through them. The backless boxes, which allow the wall to be seen through their centers, are…

Going “GREEN” in Stores

There is hardly a single home or business publication that one picks up today that doesn’t have an article or two about “greening and sustainability”. Those two words are ubiquitous: seen, heard and talked about everywhere. More American U.S. consumers are looking for “green” products and green products sold in green environments. For store designers, the goal is to create and…

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…

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…

Staying Relevant

Pauline Herbst speaks to IHA’s lifestyle trend forecaster Tom Mirabile, Senior Vice President of Global Trend & Design, Lifetime Brands, Inc., about top consumer trends for 2013-2014 and what manufacturers and retailers alike must do to stay relevant. Mirabile says, “The big message is that sometimes we lose perspective on who the consumer really is and what is important…

Pantone Style and Substance

2014 Pantone Palettes Introducing the 2014 Pantone color palettes at the International Home + Housewares Show, Leatrice Eiseman, Pantone Color Institute’s Executive Director, explained that although there are a lot of new trends in the 2014 Pantone palettes, there are also some familiar themes recurring. For example, consumers have an attachment to the “preppy” type of vintage…

Falling in Love With Life

I photograph design specialist Asko Ahokas standing in front of a giant projected pipe. The picture references Hitchcock, with Ahokas’ tall hound’s-tooth suited form silhouetted onscreen. The wooden pipe in the background is unsmokable, its bowl non-existent. These are all fitting elements for a presentation entitled “Romantic and Practical” although its working title of…