One of the most exciting things about King of Prussia, PA is the town’s name. Now along with the driver’s license address “King of Prussia” (officially confirming every driver in town as royalty), you also have a community with an exciting new centerpiece.
Most town boundaries are marked with dull, functional signs. Now six new gateway monuments stand at the entrance to King of Prussia. The town’s mall remains the big attraction. It’s the largest on the East Coast, with 20 million unique visitors coming every year.
Craig Berger, chair of visual presentation and exhibition design, developed the gateway with the King of Prussia District.
- One of six gateway monuments to the town of King of Prussia, PA
Creativity doesn’t get stuff built on its own. The collaboration is the deal here, says Berger.
Berger used an educational interactive approach, which brought together designers, business leaders and fabricators. It is hardly common for these three entities to plan and develop a commercial project from beginning to end. “Well, to design yes,” says Berger. “To pay for it no.”
Made of aluminum with internal dynamic LED lighting, the gateway monument uses cutting edge technology.
“Very few urban gateway projects use lighting as a design centerpiece,” says Berger. “The soft glow of the sign edges make the signs visible from a great distance. The illuminated letters create a strong town identity.”
Photo: Eric Goldstein
When multiple varieties of lipsticks, perfumes and eyeliners at the cosmetics store start looking like a mirage, store owners might want to contact Natasha Melo for a redesign. The VEPD student is the first-place winner of the 2011 Planning and Visual Education Partnership competition (PAVE). The competition was judged on store layout and designs of the individual fixtures within it. Melo’s entry modeled Sephora, the beauty and cosmetic retailer.
“Piece-by-piece the customer can put together their very own look,” Melo states in her project’s concept. “Like a mosaic, many different pieces come together to form a look or work of art. Geometric shapes can be broken apart and put back together to form new shapes, and these fixtures within the store were designed to do the same.”
From Natasha Melo's Piece-by-Piece PAVE entry
“Natasha did an excellent job of integrating her concept throughout the entire design from the small scale fixtures to the overall store layout,” said VEPD Chair Craig Berger who also noted the strong entries FIT had this year.
Sephora store layout by Natasha Melo
The competition is one of the top student award programs for store design. There are over 500 entries submitted worldwide. Melo’s work was chosen from 400 entries. On December 7 2011 , Melo will receive her award at Cipriani Wall Street15th Annual PAVE Gala .
The competition provides an excellent opportunity for students to obtain real-life retail design experience. Prizes include grants to students and schools. FIT has used proceeds from previous winning years to fund materials and printing of current presentations. This victory comes after another AAS student, Elyse Falato was selected as a finalist in the PAVE 3D Design Challenge. Finalists will be on view at Globalshop 2012 in Las Vegas.
Images provided by VEPD dept.
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