The Ada Lovelace Festival 2024 is one of the leading gatherings for visionaries and innovators tackling the central themes of the future. The spotlight is on groundbreaking technologies and sustainable developments that are redefining how we experience brands. For forward-thinkers, the festival offers a unique opportunity to gain insights into the future of customer relationships – from artificial intelligence to immersive brand experiences in physical spaces.

For us, attending #Orgatec is not only an important platform for engaging with clients, production partners, architects, and designers, but also a unique opportunity to experience firsthand how #OfficeSpaces of the future are evolving and to understand the importance of experience and identity for an #EmployerBrand.

By now, surely all agencies are using AI, and each has its own workflows and preferred tools. We’ll show you three tools or use cases that make our lives easier – and maybe yours too.

Last weekend, we were in Misano Adriatico at the #Italian Bike Festival.
With over 500 international exhibitors and an exhibition area of more than 50,000 square meters, the fair is an important meeting point for industry experts and the public.

We were at the EUROBIKE Show in Frankfurt. Firstly, to visit our customers and secondly, to gain an insight into the current situation in the industry.
We have summarized the most important facts for you

The motto of this year's Munich Creative Business Week (MCBW) was “How to co-create with nature?”. We have taken away and summarized the most important insights for us!

Retail is faced with an important question: how can it really transform itself successfully, not just get by somehow, but also remain fit for the future? Not just a wish, but a necessity.
At the ILM in Offenbach, Meike and Jelena Faber from Textilwirtschaft provided in-depth insights into how companies can transform themselves - despite challenges in implementation and budget.

2024 marks a turning point in retail, characterised by innovation and a new focus on the customer experience. We are experiencing an era in which retail is no longer defined solely by products, but rather by unique, multi-sensory experiences. May we introduce? The top 4 trends for this year:

Artificial intelligence has established itself as an indispensable tool in numerous areas over the past few years. A remarkable transformation is also becoming apparent in the field of brand partnerships. We will show you how AI is reshaping the landscape of creative collaboration and opening up unlimited possibilities for brands.

We are passionate about continuously discovering and developing new possibilities and solutions to promote sustainability in our society and for the environment.

It's not unusual to present a salesroom to the public in an igloo, to introduce the new Porsche at 2300 meters above sea level in a snow globe-like display, or to be surrounded by a giant Advent calendar all at once. Welcome to the exciting world of pop-up stores! These temporary stores, also known as guerrilla stores, appear and disappear again in the streets of large and small cities, and their unusual locations and impressively staged products are now also attracting the attention of customers in Germany.

We are thrilled to bring you a recap of the highlights from Milan Design Week 2023. "The design industry's efforts to develop new, more sustainable materials are impressive. In Milan, we saw it all. From textiles made from human hair to bricks. I feel intoxicated by the inspiration and the desire to keep going," summarised Monica Blanes, department Design Development.

Merging Virtual And Real

The retail industry is in a time of change. Competition from online retail is growing steadily and consumers increasingly expect personalized and seamless shopping experiences. In this context, the Digital Experience is becoming increasingly important - even outside the Internet.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the retail industry in recent years. Lockdowns, restrictions and changing consumer behavior have led to a decline in brick-and-mortar retail. Online shopping, on the other hand, is booming. Consumers have become accustomed to the convenience of shopping from home and now expect similar experiences when shopping locally.

Hannes, our Art Director Experience Design, gave us an insight into AI at our Designplus Academy, where we update and educate each other. Today, we are sharing our learnings at Designplus with you.

Berlin Fashion Week January 16-21, 2023

The New Get-Together

The Forbes Retail Tech Trends are not always uplifting, but can also bring you back down to earth. That doesn't bother us though, being groundedis just as important as flying high.

From global to hyper local

...let's fly, let's fly away! Many would like to fly away from Corona, especially our beloved retailers, because the pandemic still has them in its grip, even if, fortunately, not quite as strongly. But perhaps flight can be used in the retail landscape, albeit in a completely different way, to come out of the pandemic even stronger? The latest Forbes Retail Tech Trends are available and of course, we don't want to withhold them from you.

We are part of the Eventdesign Yearbook 2022/2023!

As an active Mission Female member, Meike Finkelnburg was a guest at the "Mission Female X-CHANGE" in Hamburg and was more than impressed by the power of the panel talks. We think that quite a few statements, points of view and approaches still resonate in the heads of the numerous visitors and will continue to do so for a while, because rarely do you see, hear and feel so much concentrated power, that is channeled in the right direction.

Part 2: Eco Storytelling

The streets are buzzing. Marveling gazes meet in a flood of design objects and dazzling installations. Everyone is happy to finally experience the design world in the flesh again. We are in the midst of Design Weeks in Italy - the first time since 2019. Our Managing Director Peter Gross brought back his biggest inspirations and highlights for us:

Interview with Simon Kooke from Spenoki

For us, sustainability is not a passing trend. For us, sustainability is an attitude and a social obligation. For this reason, we have brought a partner on board who knows what is important for us as a company and helps us to constantly improve.

Part 1: Interaction instead of material

For understanding and for all newcomers in the field of Metaverse: The current metaverse includes all virtual and 3-dimensional experienceable spaces on the internet. In addition, the term also describes a future conception of the Internet, which intends to be understood as a coherent universe - which also explains the play on words in the name (Meta & Universe). Basically, we are talking about Web 3.0. Similar to Web 2.0, the metaverse is designed by its users, but with one more decisive dimension, namely the third. The possibilities seem (at first glance) virtually limitless.

NFTs are THE topic of conversation right now when it comes to funding and investing. An NFT - Non-Fungible Token - is proof of ownership of a digital asset.

Among the top performers of the runway productions for the upcoming Fall/Winter collection, Louis Vuitton stood out with a remarkable show.

The end is the beginning

Christmas is just around the corner. The Christmas showcases of our customers already put us in the right Christmas mood!

He was considered a superstar of the fashion industry. Virgil Abloh inspired us all to be more creative.

The redistribution of roles in the fashion industry

Welcome to the new way of shopping

Coral-like Pop Up Installation at Shanghai's Shopping Mall

NFT is short for Non-Fungible Tokens. These digital artworks are dropped on digital marketplaces like sneakers and then auctioned off.

How Virgil Abloh uses fashion as a medium.

Monogram Mania at Versace.

The magic of being in three places at once.

Harrods starts the new season with generous atmospheric windows.

How retail spaces become community and experience spaces.

Political and social positioning with local reference.

About good storytelling and new self-service shop concepts.

How retailers use public space to meet people directly.

Canadian sculptor Jaime Angelopoulos creates abstract illustrative shapes and leave us with a room full of imagination.

The Beauty of Physical Space

Our responsibility as an agency is to develop clever and targeted solutions for the retail industry in which people want to participate.

How companies can take their retail marketing to the next level by using community based marketing methods.

It is about the one brand experience that people WANT to interact with.

First impressions count.
Heard too many times? That may be true, but when it comes to brand communication, the shop window can say everything and nothing.
Credits 📸 @theofficialselfridges @homecore_paris

After living through a period when retailers were closed, we look at our city centres with a different perspective. Now it shows who can link all the touchpoints, online / offline well together. When we are outside and look up from our smartphones, the shop window is the offline touchpoint number 1.
📸 credits @dior @kenzo @louisvuitton

Give people a reason to go offline!

We 🖤 this collaborative project!

Karyn Olivier’s discrete rearrangement and dislocation of familiar subjects shifts our experience, asking us to reconcile memory with the present moment, and collapsing past, present and future.
Her work often deals with themes of public and private space, and a collective nostalgia connected to shared social and physical experiences.

While everybody and everything is having an online version now, Tiny Desk Concerts existed before Corona had artists broadcast gigs from their home.

While the news are filled with headlines about the amount of fashion goods that brands produce each season, Yang Mai’s exhibition „Good Morning, China!"

Connecting people, by simply saying: Stay! Play!

Raeburn managed to be an amazingly relatable brand.

Our visit to StratCon in Berlin in July confirmed this once again:
Without sound strategic planning, any creative implementation loses impact.
As a retail agency, Designplus is aware that brand management in the space goes far beyond visual design - it is about creating experiences that reach the right people and have a lasting effect. In addition to creative design, this also requires strategically oriented concepts that are precisely and individually tailored to the brand, the communities and the locations.
Our colleagues Lilli Benz and Marleen Pauli gained valuable insights at StratCon that will further strengthen Designplus' work as a retail agency

Our new shop window concept at Zinser has made it into Textilwirtschaft and schuhkurier :)

Little Italy in Tübingen. Zinser brings La dolce Vita into the shop window for spring. We have developed a colorful, cheerful concept for the fashion chain store.
Be sure to stop by in Tübingen if you want to experience Italian flair in the shop window 😉 .

Thanks to Zinser for the great collaboration!

As an agency, we are not only a partner of STELP, but also support the non-profit café NATAN in becoming even more visible.
Meike reveals why NATAN is particularly close to our hearts in an interview with STELP :)

In a recent article in Textilwirtschaft, Tim Dörpmund, Silke Emig, Jelena Faber and Ulrike Wollenschläger interviewed industry experts such as Meike Finkelnburg, Julian Jansen, Thorsten Stiebing and Stephanie Erhard on this very topic. The message? It's time for a new beginning that goes beyond the obvious.

On 16 January, Lilli Benz and Meike Finkelnburg shared their thoughts on the intersection of modern brand management and physical formats with Yannick Dietrich from Breuninger at SEEK in Berlin. Let's dive into the world of retail realness together - no frills, but with concentrated expertise!

Is that true? In Caroline Krüll's vodcast 'New Leadership with Heart and Mind,' Meike openly discusses the current challenges of her role as Managing Director.

How can brands remain future-proof? How important is my brand's identity, and how do I foster a sense of belonging? What societal trends influence us, and how can I stay proactive with a limited budget? Meike discusses all these questions in the Textilwirtschaft Podcast.

Unlocking Brand Success: The Power of In-Store Experience
In David Meyer's, General Manager Wholesale at Tom Tailor, and Gross Peter's masterclass on Future Retail, they explored the compelling topic of Future Retail. Here are some key takeaways from the conversation:

For us, the two go hand in hand. In our company description, we call ourselves a self-efficient agency - not because it sounds good, but because this is what we practice. To enable self-efficacy within our community, it is essential for us to continually involve our employees and create a common language. That's why we brought Ms Lieb from MANEMO, an academy for sustainable development of people and economy, on board.

No more waste!

"It's sure to be super!", the sentence that virtually sealed our newly conceived community event and (at the time still unknowingly) contributed to the title of the entire event: the "Super Market"!

Why do we go to the city? What do we expect, what do we do there, what do we love, and what do we miss? These were the guiding questions of the #CheerUpStuttgart Talk at the Kultur Kiosk. The ideas and answers that participants brought to the table were inspiring and forward-thinking. It was an exciting evening filled with emotional conversations - on a mission for more optimism and cohesion in our inner cities.

FASHION REFASHIONED
The journey continues, stay tuned!

»Second Objects« is more than just another upcycling project.
It embeds principles of sustainability into the idea of recycling our own projects.

Rethink | Reuse | Recycle

This is not what you think it is. All you need is a curios mindset.
Talking Mindfulness, Management, Workshop, Flowers, Ikebana, Retail Inspiration.

Everyone communicates. Everyone sends. Does individuality contradict mainstream?
„… unloading – the uniform of society“

How do we create new spaces?
And what happens if everyone can help shape it?
Welcome to Unique Island!