M&S Christmas Shop
2018 Christmas Shop for
Marks & Spencer
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Starting in September 2017, I was asked to lead the design direction on M&S' Christmas product offering and what the Christmas Shop was going to look like in 2018. This encompassed not only gift-related products (which was the team I was in at the time), but all of the products in Home and overlapping departments (such as Beauty, Womenswear & Food).
Working closely with the leadership team, we set out to create an environment that inspired the customer and helped make purchasing decisions easy and enjoyable. No matter who came into store, the idea was to sell products that targeted different user personas and themes, rather than separating each product category and selling them in different parts of the store. These user personas and themes included festive fun, the craft lover and the games lover (you can see a more details of the games & puzzles range here).
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© Marks & Spencer
Snapshot of the Design Strategy phase
In order to bring to life each of the themes, the first task was to create a Design Strategy that highlighted the key products, materials and lifestyle shots that each theme represented. This Strategy was collated based on key product trends, market analysis and the previous year's sales data.
The proposals were then presented to the leadership team and following a few rounds of edits, the final Strategy was approved and shared across the business. Each business unit could then use this information as a reference point when designing their own product ranges, as well as the visual merchandise team who needed a reference point when it came to visualising the store layout.
Once this was defined, I scaled down the project and concentrated my efforts on designing pet, garden and games gifting which are shown here.
In order to translate designs into prototypes, clear technical specification sheets are created and sent to the suppliers
Product Development images showing the key products that formed part of the gifting range
The rest of the range shot in-store at Westfield Shopping Centre, London