Image Credit : Rob Anderson Photography
Project Overview
Mecca, Australia’s most exciting, curated luxury beauty retailer, represents 100+ of the best brands in global beauty. The THINK MECCA campaign that graced the entire 7-window frontage of Myer’s flagship Melbourne store, was chosen to create a greater brand awareness for Mecca’s broad category range and exclusive product selection. To give the brand name gravitas, 3D typography was used as a consistent sculptural feature, with each window dedicated to presenting a different face of the brand and product offering.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Project team was made up of 5 individuals from the 4 stakeholder companies involved in this project.
Marketing Manager and Brand Rep. Leila Akbarzadeh (Mecca Brands)
Creative Director: Paul Bonnici (CC2c)
Art Director and Designer: Claude Marcos (CC2c)
Graphic and Drafting: Freya Robinson (CC2c)
Visual Merchandising Manager (Windows) ; Edward Little (Myer)
Production and Installation: Stage1
Project Brief
Mecca’s project brief was literally- "we want customers to look at the windows and THINK MECCA" in one glance. CC2C felt it was important to capture the strength of the brand. This was done by representing the brand in oversized bold and sculptural 3D text, consistently across the windows. Secondly we needed to capture the sensory nature of the brand, yet show each of the product categories, eg lipsticks, fragrance, skincare in distinctive yet wholly integrated ways.
CC2C worked closely with their partner workshop to select an innovative materials palette that would achieve a premium outcome within an extremely short turn around time, and tight budget.
The windows commanded visual and emotional attention from the public streetscape of Bourke St Mall. The installation used scale and repetition techniques to cohesively express the strength, diversity and
Project Innovation/Need
Articulated through the use of digital fabrication techniques, the window run has been constructed using ‘new’ processes transforming flat sheet materials into 3D forms. Utilising cutting edge fabrication machinery including 3D printing, CNC milling, laser-cutting and form-cutting, innovation is seen in building practice. Built from 2D die-lines, a diverse application of materials including hips, acrylic, styrene and mirror-finish surfaces are explored.
Narrative is built through the repetition of the typographic element “Mecca”, manipulated in multiple ways to create individual windows. The design showcases a rich understanding of how texture, materiality, scale and form can be explored to create nuanced interpretations.
Design Challenge
Our overall challenge was to create a simple, instantly clear message that engaged customers to “THINK MECCA” for all their beauty & fragrance needs. The client brief was to approach the creative with honesty, using materials and products linked directly to specific beauty categories thus creating a visually engaging and believable world of beauty.
Tangible challenges
•We needed to display small cosmetic product in a large window setting, and still create drama while being sympathetic to the product. This is where the juxtaposition of the Micro view (Displayed Product) worked well against the Macro View (Mecca letters)
•Create a strong clear narrative across multiple brands and categories, but retain a clear and consistent visual language/Voice
•The Myer Flagship windows are prime selling and story telling real estate. At no time do they go empty. This creates immensely tight bump-in and out times which meant that all elements had to be designed and constructed for easy assembly and disassembly.
Sustainability
The nature of Visual Merchandising equates to an always changing, quick turn around life cycle of temporary materials. In the past this would have meant a lot of waste. We take sustainability seriously. Our policy at Create and Communicate 2C is at all times to reduce reliance on materials that cannot be recycled or reused. We seek out and work with suppliers who think the same as we do. In the case of digital printing it is never reusable however our printers use environmentally sustainable waterless vegetable based inks and responsible disposal of spent products.
We hire as much equipment as possible to ensure lifecycle longevity, or when we create forms, as we did for the display cubes and letters in this Mecca project, we specified their manufacture from recycled or recyclable materials, we used environmentally friendly paints and made certain the forms were either demountable or could be repurposed for other projects, thus saving materials from wastage.
This project – 60% hire, 35% materials that were from recycled materials, 5% unable to be salvaged (100%); 85% reused, 10% repurposed with 5% unable to be salvaged (100%).
Pop-Ups, Display, Exhibit & Set Design
This award celebrates innovative and creative design for a temporary building or interior, exhibition, pop up site, installation, fixture or interactive element. Consideration given to materials, finishes, signage and experience.
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