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The Insperience Store: KitchenAid Stand, Buckhead
District, Atlanta
 Design Star Exhibits & Environments, Minneapolis 
Fixtures Star Exhibits & Environments, Minneapolis
Retailer Insperience Studio/Whirlpool, Atlanta
In the Beginning
The prototype Insperience Store is the retail part of a larger project that Star Exhibits & Environments created for Whirlpool Corp., the Insperience Studio. The studio is designed to reinvent the home appliance selection process for the consumer through inspiration and experience � hence, the name Insperience. This is accomplished throughout the studio with working appliances in kitchens, live demonstrations, and classes.
The purpose of the Insperience Store would be to let customers take part of the experience home. After going through the studio, a customer would be able to purchase something tangible related to the experience since the studio doesn't sell the appliances. This would be similar to visiting a museum gift shop after touring the museum, Hoyle said.
For its target female audience, Whirlpool Corp. sought to address several aspects of home life. Hoyle explained that this was to be achieved through the communication of four experiences throughout the studio and store:
- Relax - capturing the soothing feeling of quiet home activities.
- Relate - focusing on communication between friends and family.
- Share - bringing to life the love of culinary pursuits.
- Take Care -capturing the warm and efficient care of the home and loved ones.
Each experience was to have a color scheme.
The Process of Great Design
With the studio build-out almost complete and a store design consisting of only a bubble diagram, the Star Exhibits team had less than five weeks to conceptualize and design the store and all its fixtures. The team faced a tight budget that wasn't clearly defined, "impossible" timelines such as designs being needed a month ago, and skepticism, partly because all the details for the store hadn't been nailed down, Hoyle said.
"Our strategy was to narrow the focus to the functionality and overall intent of the store because, for that, we had buy-in from our client," he said. "We brainstormed about the right response for the targeted female audience and how to duplicate the feeling they had 'insperienced' in the studio once they were in the store."
Four fixture groupings were to represent the four experiences, with an additional middle fixture holding a collection of products from all four areas. The team developed aspects of the store interior from sketches and massing models for the fixtures.
"Grouping the fixtures was a challenge because most of the merchandise for the store was undefined, except for the constant that the Stan Mixer would be featured throughout the store. The merchandise was selected to complement the experiences, rather than having the experiences complement the merchandise," Hoyle explained.
"Our material choices, colors, graphics, walls, and circulation through the store had to speak to our audience in unison with their studio experience, but with a sense of quiet reflection." The team made liberal use of white maple veneered plywood because it worked well with the materials and finishes palette, was readily available, and allowed for money-saving volume discounts.
Hoyle portrayed the store's graphics as "soft and evocative without brand positional messaging or information, but more for emotional appeal." Frosted vinyl prints graced acrylic substrates and scrim fabric gave a soft appearance to hanging banners. "Rather than broadcasting large lifestyle images and product shots, the graphics are integrated subtly into product displays," Hoyle said.
The Star Exhibits team designed and presented the Insperience Store to the
client using Form-Z, 3D, and rendering software as well as hand-illustrated
renderings. "The hand illustrations help give the otherwise-static computer
renderings life, color, and depth, adding a more realistic feel with the
implied strokes for merchandise," said Hoyle.
The Final Creation: Award-Winning Store Fixtures
The award-winning fixture showcases a signature KitchenAid product, the Stan
Mixer. The aim was to celebrate the mixer with a sculptural display drawing
customers' attention to it as they enter the store. Hoyle described how he
achieved this: "The initial concepts started by using the oblong shape of
the mixer as a footprint. Then working for a more functional display, I designed
shallow surfaces into it for shelves. Not quite satisfied with the look,
I worked on the finishes, ending up with five laminate surfaces for the fixture.
For the final effect, I honed an abstraction of the Stan Mixer itself into
the sculpted fixture."
Star Exhibits' ability to do fabrication in-house offered several advantages: reducing both the need to coordinate with outside vendors and concerns about loss of quality, enabling the team to keep tabs on project costs vs. budget, and allowing the team to monitor timelines, he added.
Since its Nov. 8, 2002, opening, the Insperience Studio in the Buckhead district of Atlanta has garnered significant media attention, especially in the Atlanta metro. "The team at Whirlpool Corp. is excited and pleased with the final outcome. Star Exhibits & Environments responded well to a challenging project," Hoyle concluded.
Design Imperatives
Have a face-to-face meeting with the client's decision makers on a project whenever possible. By doing so, you receive firsthand information, get to ask follow-up questions, and begin to build a relationship instead of getting all your information from paper or secondhand. You also can learn a lot from body language and eye contact.
Communicate and collaborate often with your client and internally with your team. It may seem like soliciting many opinions would slowing you down, but it gets you to the most appropriate solution faster with a consensus and with less revisions.
Lastly, remember that creativity is a process, not an equation.
-Sagoe Hoyle
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