Darkroom
Shop-fit / Branding / December '09
Launched by Multistorey director Rhonda Drakeford and her business partner Lulu Roper-Caldbeck, Darkroom is a new London concept store that specialises in high-end, one-off and hand-made men?s, women?s and interior accessories alongside bi-monthly art exhibitions.
Multistorey have designed all elements of the store including branding, signage, shop-fit, marketing materials, website, and packaging.
The shop sells a mix of hard-edged modernist 20th century antique pieces alongside contemporary items. The brief was to create a unisex environment and brand image that was unique, had impact, was flexible and timeless and above all showcases the diverse product. Darkroom also design their own products and needed the brand to work beyond the store environment.
The starting point was the logo which was constructed from a custom drawn typeface. The font has been designed to be elegant and leggy but with the boldness that capitalised letters bring. It holds connotations of fashion with it?s masthead qualities and interiors with it's geometric construction.
Following on from that, we designed a bold geometric pattern that uses shapes found in the logo - the intention being that the pattern would become as synonymous with the brand as the logo itself and could be used going forward as signature prints within products. The pattern became the founding structure for the shop-fit with a handpainted tiled floor that provides a grid format on which to place modular cubic display plinths.
The shop is fast paced in terms of product with many pieces being one-offs so the website has been designed to be very news led, a platform to announce new products and events. Delving further into the site, viewers find lots of more indepth information about designers and products.
To reflect the high end merchandise, quality of production has been key to the approach, from a hand painted sign and interiors, thermographic stationery and hand bound brochures to the custom made canvas carrier bags.