Fitch designs new Barnado’s store guidelines
Fitch has designed a new store concept for children’s charity Barnado’s, which aims to be a high-fashion charity store to rival high-street retailers.
The new store, in Denton Retail Park, Manchester, will source and stock fashion pieces that have been donated to the charity from around the UK.
Fitch has developed new interiors guidelines and a new visual language for the store, in a pro-bono project.
Barber Design has taken these guidelines and applied them to the Manchester store, designing graphics, signage and in-store materials.
Ed Bolton, design director at Fitch, says, ‘We wanted to change the perception that charity shops are full of outdated clothes.’
Working with illustrator Charlie Hanson the consultancy created a hand-drawn typographic style for the new Discovered by Barnado’s range.
Fitch also worked with photographer Sam Robinson on in-store photography, which the consultancy says is ‘stylish but playful’ and features children ‘hijacking’ the fashionable photo shoot.
Lucy Unger, managing director at Fitch, says, ‘The fashion-shoot images and eye-catching visual language put this store in the same league as high-fashion brands.’
Barber Design says it created patterns and wallpapers, brand walls, window formats, and departmental sigange, along with a secondary colour palette to differntiate departments. It also designed tags, bags, and temporary window graphics for the opening day.
It was my understanding that Barnardo’s had a policy of keeping donations and funds in the region they were donated. Surely getting stock from the whole of the UK goes against this? Also, what about the rest of the shops they have? I take it they will suffer as a result. Sounds like incompetent management to me…