CREATIVE DIRECTION & PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The following concepts, special projects, and visual updates were all curated and edited under my direction and mentorship. In most designs, the objectives were challenged by offering outside inspiration, contributing perspective and alternatives, and managing budget, material, and installation strategies through team collaboration.  

“MAKE A DIFFERENCE” STORE: MEN’S MOVES

OBJECTIVE: Coach a market-destination store in creative entrepreneurship to leverage its unique attributes and local customer base in an over-penetrating Men’s Division and in one of the most profitable stores in Urban Outfitters.

VISUAL DIRECTION: Improve men’s shop clarity through optimized space planning, defined marketing messages, and featured styling focuses. The store received 4 additional product categories in a calendar year, which forced an overhaul of the store environment. With the support of a local visual team, the entire men’s department was overhauled, including updated wall elevations and display applications throughout. The changes culminated in a visit by the company President, where we proudly showed off our the space, boasting the 10th highest volume men’s door in the company (out of nearly 200 stores)!

URBAN OUTFITTERS X BARNES & NOBLE

OBJECTIVE: Launch a brand new partnership between Urban Outfitters and Barnes and Noble in college markets!

VISUAL DIRECTION: I had the unique opportunity to oversee an activation in 1 of 7 Barnes and Noble stores on college campuses. Located adjacent to Georgia Tech, this setup was the largest scale and highest inventory production across the seven doors. With a small local team, we processed all the shipment, assembled the UO fixture package, merchandised, and placed all marketing assets. While we collaborated with the Store Director of B&N, all the direction and execution was completed independently of their staff and resources. After only five (long) days, we produced an amazing mini UO in a bookstore!

FLOOR FLIP: WOMEN’S TAKES MAIN STAGE

OBJECTIVE: With the support of a visual travel team and an ad hoc display budget of $10,000, optimize sales per square foot through revised shop placement, fixturing with an emphasis on traffic flow, and an overall enhancement of the store environment.

VISUAL DIRECTION: This was a full-scale store workthru, with every shop in the entire space moving to new locations. The primary objective was to prioritize the Women’s shops along the store entry, move the Men’s Department from the entry to the back of the store, dedicate more selling square footage to Sale, and update the display on six wall elevations. As the District Brand Manager overseeing this store, I created the proposal for receiving corporate funds for this store environment investment, assembled the travel team, planned the travel budget, created the agenda, served as the visual lead, and delivered measurable results to sales and the customer experience.

DISPLAY INVESTMENTS: ROI IN A TOP MEN’S DOOR

OBJECTIVE: Collaborate with business partners to create a results-driven and budget-focused men’s visual strategy that was aligned with regional and Home Office store environment goals.

VISUAL DIRECTION: Take really good men’s divisional business and make it GREAT! In collaboration with store leadership, I drafted a proposal for an ad hoc budget to strategically invest in my top producing men’s door. Once approved, the investment was applied to a very large interior wall refresh and exterior window presentation that marketed this store’s top volume-driving class, Men’s Graphic Tees. Every inch of the men’s department was transformed in FY18, driving our Lenox Mall location to finish in the company’s top 5 highest volume men’s divisions in the company. So much so that our Visual Merchandising Manager Jeremia was invited to Home Office following this success, and was honored at the Q4 All-Company meeting for the store’s strong men’s business ownership!

ALL-COMPANY FIELD LEADER PRESENTATION: COMMUNITY STORES

The video linked above was made in partnership with another East Region District Merchandising Manager, Meredith Kellner.

VIDEO CREATED BY: KATIE LAMPE  / MUSIC DIRECTION: MEREDITH KELLNER  / CONTENT DIRECTED BY: KATIE LAMPE & MEREDITH KELLNER / TESTIMONIES: SEE END CREDITS FOR PARICIPATION

OBJECTIVE: Illustrate how Meredith and I were able to implement effective systems that substantially influenced the success and spirit of the Community Stores* in our individual districts. (*Community was a segmentation of Urban Outfitters' lowest volume stores operating on a significantly different manpower census than higher volume stores, and thereby faced unique challenges that higher volume spaces rarely experienced.)  This presentation was prepared for and presented at Urban Outfitters’ annual summer Field Leader Summit in 2016.

DIRECTION: We put the focus on our people, and created a short video that used commentary from our direct reports in these Community Stores. We identified 4 key areas of growth that our top Community Stores excelled in FY17: (1) authentic interactions with our local customers,  (2) digital connection (especially in regards to social media), (3) community-driven in-store events, and (4) effective talent succession. We asked our teams to prepare talking points around these 4 successes, and asked them to shoot video clips of their honest feedback with each topic.

WOMEN’S DIVISIONAL REFRESH: A GROUND FLOOR TRANSFORMATION

OBJECTIVE: With a focus on space planning and spatial improvements, relocate and invest in shop updates within the Women’s, Accessories, and Home Departments to better engage the customer and drive an improvement to sales.

VISUAL DIRECTION: Improve customer wayfinding for shops with a greater penetration in the overall business and that better align with the omnichannel priorities. As the District Merchandising Manager overseeing this store, I was responsible for assembling the talent for the travel team, meeting both a travel and display budget, planning the entire workthru agenda and refixture direction, acting as the visual lead, and documenting final photos for distribution within the executive teams.

HOME DECORATE DISPLAY: A HOME INSTALLATION

OBJECTIVE: Provide an interactive environment that encourages customers to engage in a tactile way with Urban Outfitters’ home goods.

VISUAL DIRECTION: Create impact by grounding the Home Decorate shop with a large room environment that highlighted various merchandise categories. The room was designed to be 12ft tall to take advantage of the extremely tall warehouse ceilings in the store.

WOMEN’S LANDING INSTALLATION: FULL MAKEOVER

LOCATION: UPPER WEST SIDE, NEW YORK CITY

MERCHANDISING & STYLING LEAD: KATIE LAMPE  /  MERCHANDISING SUPPORT: KASSIE HARRSEN & KIM ARRIGO / DISPLAY LEAD: JACOB KEISER  /  DISPLAY SUPPORT: UCHE EJESI & MATT VOLPE 

MATERIALS: recycled paint cans and lids (from stores throughout the company, most were shipped in for this install and were from old floorsets!), self-tapping screws, fluorescent lights, cord kits, OSB wood, paint

OBJECTIVE: Transform an unattractive silver wall covered in sheet metal on a tight budget. (Fun fact: all stores built in this same year had these giant metal wall installations, which I coined as "shapeship walls.”)

VISUAL DIRECTION: Repurpose years of used/discarded paint cans from past floorsets and transform them as the focus material. Also, reuse and paint old OSB (that was once used as circular saw cut boards) for the feature faceout wall and mannequin platforms. 

SPACE PLANNING: FLOOR MAPS GO DIGITAL

OBJECTIVE: Completely update the fixture mapping process, transitioning from the hand-drawn method for creating floor maps to introducing a digital map option that made seasonal fixturing changes easier, and streamlined the planning process.

DESIGN DIRECTION: Utilize Adobe Illustrator and InDesign to translate original store blueprints into simpler, basic computer renderings that could be reused and just updated seasonly (instead of starting from scratch with pencil and paper every floorset). With this transition, the programs were also used to develop a catalog of digital fixtures that were drawn to scale and color coded by department. 

FLAGSHIP HOME: A FULL-SCALE ENVIRONMENT UPGRADE

OBJECTIVE: Create an updated, showroom-type shopping experience for a new expansion of home products, including furniture, bedding, textiles, bathroom novelties and decorative accessories.

VISUAL DIRECTION: Use the store's beautiful, existing architecture - the large windows - to define "show rooms" and draw focus to the merchandise with natural light. The design was carefully planned to have areas with intentional negative space, so the builds were never too closed off, unapproachable for the customer, or a shrink liability.

MACRAME LIGHT FIXTURES: ORGANIZE THE CHAOS

OBJECTIVE: Through hands-on guidance and an ongoing feedback loop, support a newly promoted Display Artist on his first original display concept, the material selection, and final installation on the sales floor.

VISUAL DIRECTION: Morgan was inspired by the Adelman fixtures but was challenged on how to control the rope chaos and how to make the design direction match the company aesthetic. He purchased glass bowls from the Salvation Army and we worked through several trials until he reached a macrame design that he could feed cord kits through and add plants to. We loved the results!

WOMEN’S SHOE LOUNGE: A SHOP OVERHAUL

MATERIALS: vintage church seating, vintage milk glass light pendants, assorted opaque and mirrored acrylic, lighting cord kits, OSB wood, recycled vintage industrial table legs and glass table tops, recycled gymnasium flooring, airline cable, self-adhesive linoleum flooring squares and paint

OBJECTIVE: Install a complete update in the shoe lounge that: (1) utilizes the store's architecture, (2) adds more surfaces for displays, (3) creates a location for customers to decompress and enjoy the space, and (4) highlights the merchandise.

VISUAL DIRECTION: This was the largest project I had ever directed as a flagship visual merchandiser, with the largest team, and biggest budget to manage. The project cost approximately $5000 and we successfully made budget by sourcing so many recycled materials. We focused on using the large windows as a design element and we sourced vintage furniture/lighting to keep with the company's existing aesthetic. My lead display artist Jacob was passionate about using acrylic as the focus material, and the chevron paint treatment was added as a last minute decision to infuse some Urban Outfitters irony and keep the entire presentation playful.

WINDOW DISPLAY: EXPAND TO FULL SIZE

OBJECTIVE: Go bigger than in past installations and design a dramatic, oversized corner window display that spanned the height of two floors and captured the attention of customers walking by on 72nd and Broadway.  

VISUAL DIRECTION: Teamwork makes the dream work! The largest challenge to this oversized design idea and installation was that there was no pass-through between the ground and second floors. This meant the panels had to be carefully designed and installed in split pieces to successfully create the large shapes across two floors. There was a lot of walkie-talkie indoor/outdoor communication between the entire visual team, but we nailed the “wow moment” we wanted!