Tyler Alterman
MEDP 299
Store Design Analysis
Barnes & Noble: A Marketing Machine
Type. Bureau Grotesque Condensed Bold. Some lower-contrast version of Bodoni. The prior is bold and legible, but also humanistic in construction. (Read: not cold like Helvetica; a sense of warmth is important in Barnes & Noble. It's in the lighting, the colors, and the type; it's in the very visible grain in the fake wood that is used.) Bodoni is modern typeface, stately and refined, telling the potential customer that they are in a Respectable Bookstore. B&N wants to stay away from seeming like a stiff corporate giant while also eschewing the perception that one has stepped into a rinky dinky discount shop. One can see this also in the logotype. The font used, Garamond Italic most likely, says warm and inviting yet also high-brow.
The Nook. The entire store is filled with advertising for the Nook. I counted 3 individual images of the Nook that can be seen from the store exterior. There were 3 huge Nook signs as you enter on Broadway. There were 2 Nook signs as you exit on Broadway. As soon as you take approximately ten steps into the store, three new Nook signs can be seen - two of them pointing to the Nook SWAS (Store-Within-A-Store). At the SWAS, there is a dedicated sales person who answers questions, has twinkling teeth, and will call out to you if you walk by.
Elsewhere in the store I saw Nook TV displays, Nook signs at the starts and ends of escalators, and Nook signs on the back-sides of other signs. I also noted that the Nook logotype is the only sans serif that is blown up to the size of the primary B&N signage (which employs Bodoni). Also, the colors are more lightly tinted. These attributes make the Nook logotype stand apart from any other type in the store. Apparently, this very-close-to-being-overbearing-but-not-quite focus on the Nook is effective, because I almost always see people at the Nook SWAS.
The café. It's quite apparent that the café is one of the store's primary money-makers, because the entire space is molded around it. If you walk a few paces in from the entrance, you'll quickly have a diagonal path up to the café. The three escalators one takes to the fourth floor are arranged in one straight line. The designers wanted to get potential buyers up to that café as swiftly as possible. Getting down is a different story. To leave from the fourth floor, one must first take stairs down from the café. Then, in order to access the down-escalators, one must first navigate in a roundabout way around buys such as: gifts, staff-recommended books, sales, and etc. While you make this long journey out of the store, you'll have plenty of time to find one the aforementioned that strikes your impulse-buy neuron clusters.
But before we leave, let's get back to the café. Before you take the final escalator up, you'll see a polite message on the left with words spelled out in beautiful Bodoni: "No Food or Drink from Outside Allowed in the Store." In case you missed this polite message, it is also stationed at the top of the escalator for your convenience (with a Nook ad on the back). Good, you don't have any food from "outside;" you might as well have a sit down. You sit on a stool at a bar-like area. In front of you is a sign, noting that, "Café tables are for our café customers."
Right then, you better grab a coffee. While you're waiting on line, be sure not to miss another Nook ad, the gift card stand, and the baked treats sumptuously laid out behind thin glass in front of you. Maybe you'll get a scone. You order a tall Starbucks coffee and a scone. When you get to the cashier, you'll notice a few minor snack items around you: biscotti, almonds, chocolate. What the hell, you'll get some chocolate too. After you get your order, you grab a magazine and sit back down. In front of you is a small ad for Pike Place Roast. Above you is a huge ad for Molten Turtle Bundt with Caramel, blown up to ten times its normal size. But you figure you've already spent enough money, you'll just sit and read your magazine. After a while, you finish your coffee and your scone and your chocolate and toss the plastic leftovers. You hear an announcement over the loudspeaker informing all that "Café seating is for Café Customers only. If you don't have a café product at your table, please give up your seat to a Café Customer." Well, you think, no worries, I'm a Café Customer. Fifteen minutes later a man in B&N uniform bellows, "Café seating is for Café Customers only. If you don't have a café product at your table, feel free to purchase something from the café. Otherwise, I will be asking you to leave." He taps you on the shoulder. You say, "But I'm a café customer; I just finish my coffee and scone and chocolate fifteen minutes ago!" he says, "Can I see your receipt?" You say, "I threw it out," he says, "Well, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Maybe you'll get one of those Molten Turtle Bundt with Caramel.
This is something that actually happens. I once grabbed a coffee cup out of the garbage so I wouldn't get kicked out. Don't get me wrong, the Barnes & Noble marketing machine wants you to sit down, read a magazine, and have a good experience...as long as you keep buying things. Especially since the café area is always packed - there needs to be some way to get a constant flow of purchases going or else the place would turn into a Parisian coffee shop, with people simply sitting there all day. (I sure would.)
Although I've taken down enough material for what could easily be a twenty-page paper on Barnes & Noble, observing the sheer amount of strategic thought and energy has become a bit exhausting. Perhaps I'll grab a cup of coffee. Wait a minute...
Store Location: 66th & Broadway
Time of Visit: 7:20 PM - 10:00 PM, April 20th
Time of Visit: 7:20 PM - 10:00 PM, April 20th
I'd initially begun research for this essay by taking photographs and writing down notes about the exterior and interior of the store. I took photos of the signs. I wrote notes about the lighting. I took photos of staff members. I wrote notes about typography. I went up the escalator. I came down the escalator. I covered the lower level, first floor, second floor, third floor, fourth floor. By the time I gave up I had acquired ten pages of notes, over fifty images, and the suspicion of security guards.
I gave up because I found myself overwhelmed. Never have I become aware of a place where so much thought, so much design, was placed into every single detail in order to make the sale, in order to create a marketing vehicle.
For example, I approached a man whose job it was to greet potential customers (and snoop out potential shop-lifters):
I gave up because I found myself overwhelmed. Never have I become aware of a place where so much thought, so much design, was placed into every single detail in order to make the sale, in order to create a marketing vehicle.
For example, I approached a man whose job it was to greet potential customers (and snoop out potential shop-lifters):
Me: Hi. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions? I'm working on a report of how Barnes & Noble is designed.
Man: OK.
Me: Have you noticed that it's mainly tourists that come through the entrance closer to Central Park while more New York residents and working people come through the entrance closer to Channel 13 and Lincoln Center?
Man: Can I ask you a question?
Me: Sure.
Man: Why are you asking me this question?
Me: Because I saw that by the Central Park-oriented entrance you have things like guide books to New York City, travel books, and gifts. [Point to these things.] But near the other entrance, you have things like "New Nonfiction" and magazines and signs advertising the Nook (the Barnes & Noble brand eReader), all things that people who spend more time in New York City are probably more likely to buy.
[Awkward moment of silence. Finally, Man smiles.]
Man: Wow, you know what, I have noticed that tourists come through here and not through there.
Me: Fascinating, thanks! [Shake his hand] What's your name?
Ira: I'm Ira.
Me: Thanks Ira!
Man: OK.
Me: Have you noticed that it's mainly tourists that come through the entrance closer to Central Park while more New York residents and working people come through the entrance closer to Channel 13 and Lincoln Center?
Man: Can I ask you a question?
Me: Sure.
Man: Why are you asking me this question?
Me: Because I saw that by the Central Park-oriented entrance you have things like guide books to New York City, travel books, and gifts. [Point to these things.] But near the other entrance, you have things like "New Nonfiction" and magazines and signs advertising the Nook (the Barnes & Noble brand eReader), all things that people who spend more time in New York City are probably more likely to buy.
[Awkward moment of silence. Finally, Man smiles.]
Man: Wow, you know what, I have noticed that tourists come through here and not through there.
Me: Fascinating, thanks! [Shake his hand] What's your name?
Ira: I'm Ira.
Me: Thanks Ira!
Among other things noticed:
Colors. Dark green, off-white, brown. All very dignified, somewhat academic-feeling colors. Even when signage opts for a more eye-catchy color - as all of the New This and New That signs do - a darker, non-offensive hue is used. (Crimson, amber.)
Colors. Dark green, off-white, brown. All very dignified, somewhat academic-feeling colors. Even when signage opts for a more eye-catchy color - as all of the New This and New That signs do - a darker, non-offensive hue is used. (Crimson, amber.)
Type. Bureau Grotesque Condensed Bold. Some lower-contrast version of Bodoni. The prior is bold and legible, but also humanistic in construction. (Read: not cold like Helvetica; a sense of warmth is important in Barnes & Noble. It's in the lighting, the colors, and the type; it's in the very visible grain in the fake wood that is used.) Bodoni is modern typeface, stately and refined, telling the potential customer that they are in a Respectable Bookstore. B&N wants to stay away from seeming like a stiff corporate giant while also eschewing the perception that one has stepped into a rinky dinky discount shop. One can see this also in the logotype. The font used, Garamond Italic most likely, says warm and inviting yet also high-brow.
The Nook. The entire store is filled with advertising for the Nook. I counted 3 individual images of the Nook that can be seen from the store exterior. There were 3 huge Nook signs as you enter on Broadway. There were 2 Nook signs as you exit on Broadway. As soon as you take approximately ten steps into the store, three new Nook signs can be seen - two of them pointing to the Nook SWAS (Store-Within-A-Store). At the SWAS, there is a dedicated sales person who answers questions, has twinkling teeth, and will call out to you if you walk by.
Elsewhere in the store I saw Nook TV displays, Nook signs at the starts and ends of escalators, and Nook signs on the back-sides of other signs. I also noted that the Nook logotype is the only sans serif that is blown up to the size of the primary B&N signage (which employs Bodoni). Also, the colors are more lightly tinted. These attributes make the Nook logotype stand apart from any other type in the store. Apparently, this very-close-to-being-overbearing-but-not-quite focus on the Nook is effective, because I almost always see people at the Nook SWAS.
The café. It's quite apparent that the café is one of the store's primary money-makers, because the entire space is molded around it. If you walk a few paces in from the entrance, you'll quickly have a diagonal path up to the café. The three escalators one takes to the fourth floor are arranged in one straight line. The designers wanted to get potential buyers up to that café as swiftly as possible. Getting down is a different story. To leave from the fourth floor, one must first take stairs down from the café. Then, in order to access the down-escalators, one must first navigate in a roundabout way around buys such as: gifts, staff-recommended books, sales, and etc. While you make this long journey out of the store, you'll have plenty of time to find one the aforementioned that strikes your impulse-buy neuron clusters.
But before we leave, let's get back to the café. Before you take the final escalator up, you'll see a polite message on the left with words spelled out in beautiful Bodoni: "No Food or Drink from Outside Allowed in the Store." In case you missed this polite message, it is also stationed at the top of the escalator for your convenience (with a Nook ad on the back). Good, you don't have any food from "outside;" you might as well have a sit down. You sit on a stool at a bar-like area. In front of you is a sign, noting that, "Café tables are for our café customers."
Right then, you better grab a coffee. While you're waiting on line, be sure not to miss another Nook ad, the gift card stand, and the baked treats sumptuously laid out behind thin glass in front of you. Maybe you'll get a scone. You order a tall Starbucks coffee and a scone. When you get to the cashier, you'll notice a few minor snack items around you: biscotti, almonds, chocolate. What the hell, you'll get some chocolate too. After you get your order, you grab a magazine and sit back down. In front of you is a small ad for Pike Place Roast. Above you is a huge ad for Molten Turtle Bundt with Caramel, blown up to ten times its normal size. But you figure you've already spent enough money, you'll just sit and read your magazine. After a while, you finish your coffee and your scone and your chocolate and toss the plastic leftovers. You hear an announcement over the loudspeaker informing all that "Café seating is for Café Customers only. If you don't have a café product at your table, please give up your seat to a Café Customer." Well, you think, no worries, I'm a Café Customer. Fifteen minutes later a man in B&N uniform bellows, "Café seating is for Café Customers only. If you don't have a café product at your table, feel free to purchase something from the café. Otherwise, I will be asking you to leave." He taps you on the shoulder. You say, "But I'm a café customer; I just finish my coffee and scone and chocolate fifteen minutes ago!" he says, "Can I see your receipt?" You say, "I threw it out," he says, "Well, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Maybe you'll get one of those Molten Turtle Bundt with Caramel.
This is something that actually happens. I once grabbed a coffee cup out of the garbage so I wouldn't get kicked out. Don't get me wrong, the Barnes & Noble marketing machine wants you to sit down, read a magazine, and have a good experience...as long as you keep buying things. Especially since the café area is always packed - there needs to be some way to get a constant flow of purchases going or else the place would turn into a Parisian coffee shop, with people simply sitting there all day. (I sure would.)
Although I've taken down enough material for what could easily be a twenty-page paper on Barnes & Noble, observing the sheer amount of strategic thought and energy has become a bit exhausting. Perhaps I'll grab a cup of coffee. Wait a minute...
