NEW YORK, NY—Chute Gerdeman Retail, the Columbus, OH (U.S.A.)-based retail branding and design firm, received multiple First Place awards in two recently announced retail design competitions.

The big winner in both the Chain Store Age and Retail Design Institute (RDI) competitions was Barbie Shanghai, the world’s first store entirely dedicated to the iconic doll. Barbie won Chain Store Age’s Store of the Year, as well as first place honors in three individual categories—Attraction Retailing, Cashwrap and Fitting Room—and received an Honorable Mention in the Exterior category. In the RDI competition, Barbie was honored with first place for specialty stores over 10,000 sq. ft., and also received an Innovation Award for the store concept.

For the activity-driven experiences at the store, Chute Gerdeman Retail organized and choreographed the Barbie Design Center activity, and planned and designed the Barbie Fashion Stage. In creating the Barbie Design Center activity and Fashion Stage show, the Chute Gerdeman design team integrated the powerful Barbie brand essence with a girl-centric point of view.

Chute Gerdeman partnered with Mattel and Slade Architecture on all aspects of creating the themed experiences—crowd management, personalized staffing and attention, time sequencing, and audience participation—in addition to collaborating with the international project team to seamlessly integrate unique environments and brand communications into the larger Barbie Shanghai identity.

Also honored with first place awards in both competitions was West Marine’s Jacksonville, FL store, which was honored as the year’s best large format (big box) specialty store. Chute Gerdeman reinvented the entire West Marine store environment, addressing everything from store entrance design, customer circulation and adjacencies, visual merchandising and fixturing, to lighting, graphic communications, signage and wayfinding, and color and materials.

West Marine is the nation’s leading specialty retailer of boating supplies and accessories.

About Chute Gerdeman
Since 1989, Chute Gerdeman Retail, based in Columbus, OH, has created retail brands, their identities, their environments, and every other customer touch point. The firm’s client list includes: AAFES, C&A Brazil, Christopher & Banks, Hamleys, Kohl’s, Levi Strauss, Mattel (Barbie Shanghai), M&M’S/Mars, RadioShack, Sheetz, Shopko, Swiss Farms, Target, Tween Brands and West Marine. The company has become one of the most respected design firms in the country with more than 150 awards including four “Store of the Year” awards for: Kiva Spa, M&M’S World Orlando, and Barbie Shanghai. For more information, go to www.chutegerdeman.com.

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