In Store Signage and Environmental Design from the best Designers in Pittsburgh

Ocreations knows how to design for interiors and in-store signage.
Environmental Design keeps customers engaged while in store.

Q: What is Environmental design?
A: Environmental design is the process of addressing your surrounding in-store environment for creating traffic flow, visual space awareness and enhancing the customer experience.

01 – Branding a new location

Opening a new location for your business provides several opportunities based on your branding goals and marketing strategy. We have 2 core approaches to consider: Your first location or a new location.

If this is your first location then the methodology will be to brand the store environment itself as a real world representation of your brand, bringing the personality of your company to life through signage, interior-design, fixtures and store layout. Successful communication of the brand to in-store customers is a key part of the process. Check out the ocreations’ Environmental Design portfolio for some great examples.

If this is a new location, there are several directions available ranging from rebranding considerations to the evolution of a dynamic brand. When considering the evolution of your brand a good example is the NFL and the unique opportunities presented to capture the personality of each city.

The design of the storefront itself is the first impression, but not the last. When ocreations designed the storefront for Julia James Salon the focus was on clear recognition of the brand and successful communication needs for a Salon in a business area. The approach used to design interior lobby for Argo AI included the understanding that this area would be both the first and last impression left on visitors.

02 – Trade show signage

A low quality customer experience at a trade show will leave a negative impression on the customer that is especially harmful to your brand if it makes its way online in Social Media. When trade shows are important to your company, ocreations can help you create a memorable experience that visitors will talk about for years to come.

Social media has created a new dimension to trade shows by providing the opportunity of highly interactive environments that mesh with the social landscape. A fundamental goal for any booth should be one of people wanting to take a photo and share it on Social Media. The situation is unique for every company and provides endless opportunities for creative ideas and new concepts. The design team at ocreations knows how to design and combine Social Media with Trade Shows for success at events.

Designing the visual, physical and interactive layers into a complete experience is a key part of the ocreations environmental design process. We can help you capitalize on things like designing your booth with social check-ins in mind and other more memorable interactive opportunities where customer photo ops can bring your product to life in the social sphere. Allowing customers to try on and try out your products on the backdrop of a well- branded environment is accomplished by the print materials surrounding them. Working directly with event planners is part of the ocreations tactical playbook for driving more attendees to your booth using good design.

03 – Creating traffic flow with design

After years of studying the ways people move through stores, ocreations has the knowledge and experience needed to create good traffic flow. We know how to keep people in your store longer using environmental design tactics.

Carefully pairing your store aisles and islands to flow with shelving and open spaces keeps customers moving through the store and constantly immersed in the real-world manifestation of your brand. Aspects of both science and creativity in design come to life. Through the study of heat maps that show how customers move around a store, ocreations is able to optimize store layouts like never before.

04 – Designing visual space awareness

People need to feel a certain way while in-store in order to want to spend money. The Effects of Store Environment on Shopping Behaviors are well understood and studied. Turns out that if an interior space is too cluttered, customers will feel trapped in and the brand appears aggressive, but if the interior is too open the brand appears weak. Either of those situations make customers want to leave and do not encourage them to feel comfortable spending money.

Visual Space Awareness is an important concept in design methodology because it is embedded in the spatial perception of the human brain. In fact, it is so important that entire areas of science and psychology are devoted to studying Spatial Ability.

The way that Spatial Ability is used in Architecture is the foundation for designing the environment in a way that psychologically encourages customers to feel comfortable buying products. Let’s examine a collection of the best interior design for spatial awareness and ask the important questions such as “how does the environment make you feel?” and “do you want to visit this environment?”.

05 – Placement of fixtures & lighting

Walk into your favorite store or restaurant, one you enjoy being in, then look up! We bet you notice a very interesting array of lights and carefully placed fixtures. The ‘sky above’ in a store creates a new dimension of design opportunity that allows the creation of direct effects on how customers perceive your brand and qualify their own experience while visiting.

Harnessing the power of different frequencies, colors and intensities of light causes real effects on people that range from excitement to stress! If the wrong lighting is used in an environment then the wrong impression is also created.

Consider how the police use intense bright white lights for interrogation; you would not want those in your restaurant to welcome patrons to a comfortable bar or dining space. The design team at ocreations knows how to harness the power of light and color during the environmental design phase. Our team can create successful consumer experiences for your spaces that use the most appropriate fixture and lighting setup for your interior.

06 – Paint colors and wall décor

Research into the psychology of paint colors is a major investment paint companies have made that has contributed to the major successes of retail stores and restaurants around the world. The color of a room will make family feel good at home and of course color will also influence shoppers just as easily. It has been proven that 85 percent of the reason people buy one product over another is a direct result of the color in the area surrounding them.

The Color Marketing Group provides us with the power of collective knowledge of color design professionals and carefully selecting the right color combinations for your interior is a design consideration ocreations takes seriously.

07 – Office space design

An Improperly designed office space can put workers to sleep while a correctly designed space can increase productivity and mental health. A properly designed work space will change profit margins of your company and in most cases determine the ultimate success or failure of your company.

Looking at amazing office spaces to start off the process of inspiration is a great way to get ideas, but there are also compelling reasons why and why not to do certain things. Let’s consider how the wrong color of blue with the wrong frequency of light will cause workers to start falling asleep at their desks while the right colors and the right lighting will keep workers awake and full of creative energy.

Considering what kind of employees you have, what their jobs are and what your company does is important, too. In a call center where people need to be friendly and happy to keep customers satisfied there is a completely separate strategy to consider when compared to a bill collection agency or a high- pressure sales environment.

Whatever your situation, ocreations has the knowledge and the experience to design the right kind of environment for your business with Office Space design tactics that help your company both look better and work better, too.

08 – Psychology of interior design

The placement of objects in a room has a direct effect on the mental space the people in that room will create in their own minds. It is possible to stimulate the mind to be more creative using space. This applies to the home office as well as the in-store experience. There are hidden ways that architecture affects how people feel.

Let’s consider the gravity of this situation for a moment. We now know that there are chemicals in people’s mind that control their emotions; thoughts and feelings are directly linked to the environment they are in. With the right color and space, we can influence people to be either hungry or sleepy. If an office has a room full of workers who are always hungry instead of inspired, that could be a problem, but if a restaurant has a room full of patrons who are feeling ready to eat because the right tone pf orange was used during the environment design; then that is a success. Turns out that a well-organized restaurant with the right color, lighting and design will indeed make food taste better.

If you want your business to be more successful and more profitable then the right team of interior designers is needed. ocreations has that team.

09 – Designing the Customer experience

When ocreations combines all of the environmental design concepts listed above for a holistic effect, we can both create and control the “Customer Experience”. Carefully examining each of these concepts is a time -tested skill that the ocreations’ design team has honed. Does your marketing strategy include an appropriate and effective Customer Experience (CX)?

There is far more than interior-design at play here; ocreations has the experience needed to make sure your CX is seamless across branding, product packaging design, print design and making sure the website design all match up.

10 – Maintaining Good Environmental Design

Regular check-ups and Maintenance are a key part of environmental design; we know how to sync up your regular store cleaning with your in-store promotions. Ocreations can help you maintain your branded environment all year long by aligning your product spreads and store interiors with seasonality – meeting the demands for ever evolving fresh ideas in a store front.