RETAIL
BY CHRISTINA NELSON
In the past, the philosophy was to just to light the merchandise; now there's interest in creating excitement with neon, mirrors, moving lights, color washes - even video, animation and sound," observes Manhattan-based lighting designer Marsha Stern. "No matter how large or small a retail setting, the object is to bring in revenue and that happens through traffic," she explains. "What better way to draw people from a distance than with light and movement?"
Stern is among a growing number of audio/video and lighting professionals catering to the retail market to showcase goods in new and different ways. Experienced in theatrical lighting, she first became involved in retail architectural lighting when she worked on a lighting system for a sound-tracked animated show at the FAO Schwarz store in Las Vegas. Three years later, in 1999, she returned to the toy retailer to develop a Lighting design for a one-of-a-kind shopping destination on the second floor of the company's flagship Manhattan store.
The plan was for a 1,500-sq-ft. multimedia-driven store-within-a-store selling merchandise specifically themed to the Star Wars "prequel," The Phantom Menace. In an unusual move for a retail business, the FAO Schwarz.
ELECTRONICS project team, which included vice-president of store development, Dik Glass, and director of the visual department, Tom Crossman, decided to "cloak" the overall area in the same blackness of deep space that pervades the film. At the same time, the near life-size mannequins at the shop's entrance and the models of spacecraft hanging from the ceiling needed to be clearly lit, as did the all-important merchandise displayed on shelves and racks throughout.
"What was unique, even exciting," says Stern, "is that we were freed from using the fixed house lights that typically illuminate merchandise and were able instead to utilize several forms of automated moving lights. Stern explains that today, moving head luminaires - as they are called in the industry - are taking their place alongside more conventional retail lighting techniques and being programmed to work in concert with audio systems and interactive environments.
"Moving lights were a wonderful instrument created for rock and roll that have now infiltrated many other areas, but fully automated lighting is relatively new to architectural interiors and to retail in particular."
At FAO Schwarz, Stern says, "the lighting program complements the large videowall playing film clips and illuminates the scenic pieces, such as the space vehicles. And as the light moves around, the eye follows, so you're more aware of the environment than if the house lights were on."
One challenge was to position lighting for the scenic and set pieces without interfering with the line of sight to the videoscreens or merchandise displays. For the suspended spacecraft, the solution was to install some lighting directly in the crafts' bodies and augment it with neon special effects designed to simulate the rockets' fire and smoke. Control of Stern's automated lighting system is handled by an ETC Irideon Master Control processor hidden in a small closet in the back of the store.
Stern does admit that one of the drawbacks to moving fixtures themselves in the retail setting is the necessity for ongoing maintenance, and she often enters into contracts with her clients to be both programmer and maintenance coordinator. "From a technology point of view, moving heads are highly intelligent, but they can also be temperamental," she comments.
With the success of the Star Wars venture, FAO Schwarz last year asked Stern to take on another project on the first floor of the same Manhattan store - a retail light show of much smaller proportions in a far smaller space. Unlike the area draped in the dark cloak of the universe, this section of the store was to burst with color and movement and would be devoted to a display of Nickelodeon products.
"The area was really quite small -only about a 20-ft.-sq. grid to hang lights - so we had to choreograph the lighting carefully to work with the videoscreens, monitors, and ongoing audio system," Stern recalls. "As with the installation upstairs, the concerns were more the size of the fixture and its ease of control rather than budget. FAO was looking for a light that wasn't too big, yet something that could attract - a light that could stand alone and think by itself as there wouldn't necessarily be personnel around to monitor and control the system."
Stern chose to incorporate four compact moving head washlights, mounting them at each corner of the display to provide additional color to the merchandise and create ambiance with a soft-edged color wash on the floor and ceiling. In combination with an array of house lights and mirrored wall surfaces, the effect is striking and the mood playful, in keeping with the Nickelodeon product line.
"Automated lighting of this type is a good choice for the retail environment," says Stern. "The fixtures are small, light, compact and can easily be mounted unobtrusively in a typical store setting."