Your retail location is your biggest advertisement. If you don’t think about your brand when you design your brick and mortar, your customers are going to notice.
When Shany Kaufman was asked to build out a branding project for a cafe, she knew that their interior design was out of sync with the branding she had created, so she went out and drew up how she thought it should look. After that cafe became a huge success, Shany went out with her natural talent and flair to create one incredibly successful project after another. Her trick was infusing brand in space to create retail locations that matched with their brand.
In this episode, Shany shares some top tips that you need to know when designing your brick and mortar store. She also shares her struggle of being the sole creative brain in her company and the systems she came up with to allow her to scale despite her limited bandwidth.
Teaser:
My Guest: Shany Kaufman
Shany Kaufman is the CEO of ICO Design Group, an Architectural Design Firm specializing in branded interiors for the commercial and residential industries. She is a mom of four beautiful children and just recently got married.
Shany opened her firm 6.5 years ago, when she knew she had to start supporting herself. With a strong passion for the arts but never specifically interiors, her background was in Graphic Design, which she practiced for 14 years. Shany taught herself everything she knows about interior design, and continues to learn more every day.
The hustle and the passion for design is what keeps Shany going strong. Never one to compromise on quality, her goal is to always bring out the wow factor through all her designs. Shany has been through everything, but she doesn’t let it get her down. She built this baby from nothing and plans on taking it to the very top.
Pivotal Moments:
Tried to study design at NYIT (New York Institute of Technology) but couldn’t sit in the class and needed to start working on projects so that she could figure things out herself.
Took a course that taught her how to use Adobe Illustrator, and then went out with natural talent, grit and determination to create her career in graphic design and branding.
Was hired to do a branding project for a cafe, and while on the job, realized that their interior design didn’t match their brand. Drew up a quick sketch of how she thought it should look and showed it to the cafe, who hired her to design the store.
The cafe turned out to be a huge success, bringing her more clients who wanted her to design their store interiors in a way that matched their brand.
Grew her interior design and branding business organically, mostly off the back of referrals from satisfied clients.
Shany is currently running her business ICO Designs, servicing healthcare and retail stores by providing the unique blend of interior design and branding services to help stores convey their messages and branding to their customers in a consistent manner.
Part 2 of this episode, where you can learn everything you need to know about designing your brick and mortar, plus Shany’s struggle and breakthrough, will be live this Thursday 14th March at estierand.com/55-2.
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