Hooked on books

Sunday 21st Oct, from further visits to Brighton

The biggest thing that Jen, Sarah and I have been raving about is the floor. Carpets are difficult to maintain and it was obvious before we saw Chertsey that the solution was tiles. Our absolute favourites – most especially for the kid’s section have been combinations of the following (found online but which can be sourced through The Natural Flooring Company in Brighton):

I thought it worthwhile at this point posting up the ‘blues’ that could be sourced from Dulux. The pale blue with the asterisk drawn on it is the source colour I suggested was in place for the kid’s shelving unit. The interesting thing is the column of colour next to this strip which Dulux reckon on being Edwardian and Art Deco colours – perfect for the character of the place we’re in:

One of the ideas we had was for a block-printed motif around the shop (which could simply be the shop name picked out in a slightly darker colour than that of the walls). The following design was in black, found on a postcard in a Godalming bar right after we’d finished emptying that shop:

The postcard made us think of business/ compliment cards that we could present to customers. The following design was picked up in an art gallery and we thought it note-worthy for the amount of ‘white-space’ which could be used for writing notes to customers:

However, more in keeping with the character of the shop, it’s staff and what our customers love about us, is the ‘DIY’ feel of the luggage label we were given by a new shop in The Lanes:

The idea is essentially that the shop logo and phone number is printed on one side and on the other could be handwritten notes from the staff. The business card is then secured to handbag straps, mobile phone cases etc so isn’t easily mislaid.

Speaking of PoS materials leads us nicely onto this advert for a company that makes professional shop display systems. If you look more closely at the photograph with the black background in the image below, there are cube display units (with lights) that are of adjustable height and therefore perfect for a smaller window where a more formal and less cluttered arrangement is required:

Many of the funky shops in Brighton had good light fitting designs but two stood out. The first, in Habitat of all places, for the kid’s section is a moon:

And another design – which would be a very good replacement for the old and very expensive to replace the current glass globe lighting – are the coloured plastic bulbs that we found could be sourced from a company called kartell. The light is designed by Ferruccio Laviani and is a suspension lamp called ‘FL/Y’, more details of which can be found on this PDF: FLY by Laviani

The best online catalogue site we’ve found so far though is: PostModern Designs

 

Wednesday 9th Aug, Lewes and Brighton

In search of antiques, we first passed this colourful window which is the outside of Bill’s, the grocers and cafe (though the bright sunshine causes distracting reflections from the brewery shop opposite):

In the window of May’s, another of the organic ‘good food’ shops that have appeared around Sussex, is a display of an odd assortment of antique furniture including this chair on which is stacked a load of old books (though in the antique shop next door was a wooden stack of fake books which looked strong enough to support a big display of real books):

Inside May’s, Jen found this old medicinal cabinet which would have contained herbal medicines but labelled on the front now are blends of herbal tea. The interesting detail is the assortment of books on the top shelf:

Across the road in the Lewes Antique Centre which is four floors of amazing (and relatively cheap) bits and pieces of ’stuff’, I saw this old theatre lamp mounted on a tripod… absolutely perfect for a window display!

Time then for lunch (at nearly 3pm) and while the waitress scooped my steak sandwich off the ground (the perils of eating outdoors), I got chance to photograph the best chocolate cake ever aka Jen’s snack:

Next stop… Chichester with Mark to hunt down interesting stuff in the west of West Sussex!

 

 

 

So that was then…

On a trip to Brighton, I started taking photographs in The Lanes as inspiration for how we might refurbish the shop. In this design, a mosaic in the entrance to a fashionable optician’s:

In a home decor shop owned by a Finnish interior designer/ artist, I found the following light shade which could be recreated from ‘found’ materials such as milk cartons.

A screenprint priced at £30 which could be reproduced – or bettered – for the cost of wood, fabric, paint, paper and a little imagination:

And one of the best features about the shop was the way that the old plaster had been ripped away – possibly accidentally during the refit – to reveal the ‘real’ building beneath the facade. This reminded of the brick course that I found when re-plastering the walls in the bookshop cafe.

For the science-fiction section, a mash-up between the clock-punk of Captain Nem0…

…and the steam-punk of Willam Gibson’s ‘Difference Engine’ which also recalls the adventure stories of Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle among others:

For the Mind, Body, Spirit section, the ethereal art of Audrey Kawazaki:

Or something bolder and more colourful such as the art work of Judy Hewgill:

I had an idea to decorate the ‘idle’ parts of the shop .eg. round pillars which cannot house book furnishings and parts of the stairs. This idea could potentially involve customers – and was influenced by Frank Warren’s ‘PostSecret’ project – is to ask customers to submit postcard-sized pieces of art to decorate the shop. These could be plain or be based on pictures, hand-written or printed, about books or about themselves but anything like the following: