DDi - April/May 2010 - (Page 8)

8 | From the Editor Are you up for the challenge? L ike most things in life, there are a lot of questions surrounding the retail industry right now. How quickly will we recover? Will the consumer be forever changed? Have we done enough to push forward with confidence? Most of these questions, unfortunately, do not and will not have finite answers attached. The challenges the retail design industry faces in the next 12 to 18 months are large and defining. We recently asked DDI’s Editorial Advisory Board a simple, broad-reaching question to wrap our heads around exactly what is on the everyday to-do list of the typical retail designer: What are the top-of-mind challenges affecting you right now? The responses to this simple question, we quickly found, were not simple at all. Real, complex issues face our industry on a daily basis, and drive the decisions that design firms and retailers make each minute of the day. Some of the key issues that came up again and again included: Cost. Budgets. Relevance. Local. Global. Service. Mobile technology. Creativity. Future talent. Brand loyalty. Remodels. In-store experience. Value. Strategy. Change. These are all valid, pressing concerns that are, quite frankly, keeping our industry’s thought-leaders up at night. Balancing the demand for a higher level of design and brand awareness than ever before, while working with limited resources, was a common theme, and a challenge that most in this industry are facing. One challenge I read resonated poignantly: “Building in time to dream, visualize, ideate and take daily steps to put long-term goals into action.” There’s the kicker, eh? That time for personal creative thought and reflection might seem like wasted space to the average person, but to the design-minded reinventors of retail, it is essential—and, most likely, lacking. When is the last time you had a moment to put down your work, close your eyes and visualize? Brainstorm? Pencil sketch? Craft change? Ideate a new direction? Dream? We often get caught up in the numbers and the budgets and the deadlines, but do we allow ourselves the opportunity to stop, breathe and re-evaluate? There might not be answers to all of the challenges and questions we face, but taking the moment to at least acknowledge and reflect upon them is part of the journey to future progress. So much of the retail industry’s future relies upon the one metric that we can’t control—the will of the consumer. But perhaps retailers have a bit more sway than ever before. In a recent interview with CNBC, J.Crew CEO Mickey Drexler did not champion the March retail sales uptick to consumers at all. “I don’t talk about the comeback of the consumer,” Drexler said. “…I talk about the comeback of great retailers, or of good retailers.” We’ve entered a time to look within. Challenge yourself and your team to dig deeper, and be better. Challenge yourself to be or create something different—something great. Alison Embrey Medina Executive Editor aembrey@ddimagazine.com | April/May 2010 www.ddimagazine.com http://www.ddimagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of DDi - April/May 2010

DDi - April/May 2010
Contents
From the Editor
Newsworthy
Consumer Insights
Greentailing
Editor’s Choice
Design Snapshot
Channel Focus: Department Stores
Sporting Authority
Lighting Super Section
Lighting the Way
Viva Mexicano
Right Light
Product Spotlight
GlobalShop Show Coverage
Calendar
Advertisers
Classifieds
Think Tank

DDi - April/May 2010