Paperchase stores are achieving the highest energy ratings in the UK.

Of the last 27 stores to open, 55 percent have been A rated and 19 percent B rated. But more interestingly, of the last 12 stores to open 92% percent have been A rated (11 of them) and 8 percent (one store) has been B rated.

Here is the Energy Performance Certificate one of the most recent openings.

Our continuous development of the Paperchase store design strategy is obviously paying off – achieving better energy ratings without any loss of ambience in the sales areas.

Lydia Thornley, the designer who created our branding, is passionate about the craft of design.  She has noticed a recent resurgence in ‘things you can touch’, so we asked her to write a few lines. www.thornley.co.uk

It’s all about digital but craft is making a comeback

The obituaries for print have been a little premature.

Just as we’re all blogging and tweeting our way into a square-eyed stupor to maintain the average business’s array of communications, a generation brought-up on digital media has discovered the joy of ink on paper.

After years of straightforward publications briefs, we’ve never had so many production visits in one season to coax the absolute best from tactile materials. Print is suddenly special.

We mentioned this to printers Tradewinds who, it turned-out, had just done a project with Royal College of Art students. They wanted to see what happened when fluorescent colours were substituted for the normal process inks. Print, to them, was novel and exciting.

Last year’s stellar show at the Redchurch Gallery in Shoreditch by University for the Creative Arts Epsom graduates featured portfolios not on screen but as books.

And itís not just print: textiles, growing, drawing, all manner of classes and social making, buzzing with urban twentysomethings.

We like that. It’s good for design. It creates a new generation of clients who value things they can touch. And all of that understanding of craft by young designers can only create a more interesting, more varied, better-crafted web.

Two new Paperchase stores opened recently. The first is in Wimbledon, which opened on the 22nd March and a few days before that saw the opening of the Paperchase at the redeveloped King’s Cross Station.

King’s Cross Station now has true wow-factor, courtesy of John McAslan’s redesign featuring the stunning roof and of course, the restoration of the grand Victorian buildings.

A new Paperchase also opened in Utrecht station in the Netherlands.

We have finally joined the Twitterati!

A few weeks in and we are getting the hang of it so do follow us if you want to know more about what we are up to.

@wingatedesigns

A great start to 2012 with this piece in Design Week about our new branding by Lydia Thornley Design.

Click the link below to read the full feature on the Design Week website.

Design Week Covers Wingate Design Partnership Rebrand

Paperchase is moving location within Bluewater, so we approached the new store as a design development of the old store and a lot of items that were in the original have been updated and used again in the new space.

The double height unit has a mezzanine that has been designed to look like a pod, touching only the side walls, with a bridge linking it to the main store.  This is also the first outing for another development of the signature stripe wallpaper – electric wallpaper where we have taken a print from a laptop bag, blown it up to 7m x 5m and illuminated it.

We are also installing a one-piece aluminium shop front and the ambient lighting within the soffit at the front and below the mezzanine is also cut into the shape of the laptop bag pattern.  Because of the ceiling heights, we have been able to design a one off fluorescent tube chandelier, four of which will be placed in the store.

Opened recently.

A prime site at Fenchurch Street, within the heart of the City, where we have pared back to reveal the structure of the building and then fitted out the space more as an installation, with little touching the building itself and variable ceiling heights to create interest.

There is a rear garden that could be open during summer for customers’ use, perhaps to eat their lunch, and there are plans to insert a ‘pop up’ coffee shop.

Opened recently.

A listed building where we found lots of interesting structural things when we were stripping out requiring a lot of quick thinking and hours on site redesigning on the laptop in order to keep in front of the project programme [we have a motto – don’t work hard, just work fast].

We are retaining the existing shopfront, but the interior is urban-meets-the-East-Ridings presenting itself as an installation.

A quirky store and part a massive three floor building refurbishment project we are undertaking, that will go on behind the scenes once the store has opened.

Opening soon.

We have recently completed Paperchase projects in Amstelveen and The Hague within DeBijenkorf, the Dutch department store chain.

While we have also delivered station projects for Arnhem, Amsterdam South and Utrecht for the retail group Servex – Paperchase’s partner in the Netherlands.

Recently completed:
Paperchase Plymouth and Dundee, Scotland

Coming soon:
Paperchase – Perth, Scotland
A first attempt at a Christmas pop up shop, the fit out was executed over four days with the full shopfit coming in the New Year.

Paperchase – Manchester
Refurbishment of the flagship store (the original Wingate design dates back to 1997) and goes on site during 2012/13

Paperchase – Abu Dhabi
A concession in a Borders store.

Paperchase – Finchley Road, London
Paperchase – King’s Cross station, London
Paperchase – Glasgow, Scotland
Flagship store going on site late 2012

Paperchase – Head office, London
Designing a new reception area.

Paperchase is a very switched-on client that really understands the design process and the value of good design to their business.

They accommodate experimentation and new ideas, realising that this does not compromise the sustained building of a brand.

A big thank you to Timothy Melgund, Robert Warden, Karen Jagger (management), Mark Upstone (visual merchandising) and Adrian Hunter (stripes) all of whom have collaborated in some way on the various Paperchase projects

www.paperchase.co.uk

The visual design for this site was created by Lydia Thornley and built by Tutti Communications.