2 weeks has passed since I went to Shanghai to setup this tiny stationery corner in a city'super food store. Yup, stationery in a food store and I'm proud of it. Thanks for all the helps from Midori, Moleskine, MT, Lomo and KOLO, it was just a concept, then it was on my drawing board in 3D and every party contributed a little bit and there it is now.
I was proposing to put a real Travel Photo Cafe there, combining a real cafe with travel gears mostly in the form of stationery and photography. It was subjected to a lot of inattention and my inability of conveying the concept. Finally, to the company, it is just a stationery section in a food store.
Interestingly, one day before soft opening, our managing director came to me and asked if I can use the huge backdrop around my stationery section to create something related to the concept, rather than hanging up typical posters. I immediately pulled up my Macbook that night in the hotel and quickly composed the look I wanted. Finally yesterday, the day before our grand opening on 1st June, the backdrop was finally posted on the wall (I'm not in Shanghai so I can't take a picture or have a good look of it). Everything just fell into the right place, the only difference from my original idea is just the missing of a real cafe. But that's fine, I'll find another opportunity.
From just the merchandising you see from the photo here, you may not be able to tell the concept. What I put there in the Travel Photo Cafe are all about recording and creativity through stationery and photography products. I hope people visiting this section will appreciate it and learn about the concept through the backdrop and the little make up samples I did.
I particularly like the Midori Traveler's Notebook display, both Midori and I put some efforts into making it compact yet able to convey the mood of the "traveling spirit". For MT masking tape, I picked up some nice food containers from the store to make it look like candies/cakes, which is quite matching. Moleskine is of course highly supportive to create a Moleskine wall decorated with lightboxes and video.
As of today, the best sellers of this section is the city'super x Moleskine recipe journal and Midori's Traveler's Notebook. I'm quite sure when people are visiting this store expecting to find only food related stuffs, they will be surprised by this little section with delight. It is just eye widening to many, when I observed during soft opening.
Well, I maybe mumbling to myself here for the little inner pleasure of a personal experience. But if you have been there, or haven't but like the way it was done, I appreciate it.
