UC Students Win Three Top Awards in International Design Contest, More Than Any Other School

Students in the University of Cincinnati’s

top-ranked

interior design program recently brought home more prizes – and more prize money – than any other school in a prestigious international retail design competition.

That contest was sponsored by The Planning and Visual Education Partnership (PAVE) along with Sephora, a leading international retailer of beauty products.

Fourth-year interior design students from UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) won three of six top awards in the 2013 contest which asked students around the world to re-imagine the way that Sephora conceptualizes and presents its cosmetics sector within the overall store footprint.

In the global competition, which was judged by members of Sephora’s store design leadership team and by leaders in the retail design industry, no other school won as many prizes as did UC. And UC students brought home a total of $9,000 in prize money as well as winning $3,000 for the School of Architecture and Interior Design.

The UC student winners were

Visual Merchandising Category

• First Place: UC’s Lauren Ferrell
• Third Place: UC’s Gabrielle Enzweiler

Store Design Category

• Second Place: UC’s Jennifer Bukovec

These students created their winning designs in a fall 2013 retail design studio course led by Ann Black and Brian Davies, both SAID associate professors.

UC’s Ferrell, 22, of Tulsa, Okla., and Enzweiler, 22, of Cold Spring, Ky., both focused their efforts on re-imaging Sephora’s hair-care sector, a recent addition to the company’s traditional focus on cosmetics. Ferrell focused her design concepts on millennial shoppers, the most likely demographic to patronize Sephora outlets. She created a design concept that would serve the needs of

• “Grab and go” shoppers on a time budget, who know what they want and are not seeking to engage with interactive offerings within the store.

•  “Try and buy” shoppers can use tools like a touch-mirror screen or a sensor pad that can “read” any product placed upon it in order to offer tutorials, information (like ingredients) and more.

•  “Stay and play” shoppers are offered engagement that allows them to not only shop but find entertainment and interest in doing so by, for instance, trying out seasonal products.

Enzweiler’s final solution was a “pop-up” store or fixture that could either travel independently from city to city or fit within an existing Sephora location in order to introduce the hair-care products and brands carried by the retailer.

She suggested that each pop-up store contain four stations:

• SEPHORAproduct to order samples and products
• SEPHORAtrends where customers could try seasonal trend items
• SEPHORAstyling where customers test products and tools
• SEPHORAadvice with video tutorials with experts
  

In designing a fixture system that could serve in different store configurations, UC’s Bukovec, 21, of Dallas, Tex., focused on the power of story. The elements within her l design concept – interactive screens, light installations and virtual mirrors – would change and respond depending on any client’s beauty needs, wishes and persona – her story.

She explained, “My project focused on the idea of story and empowering each individual consumer to be the author of her own beauty story, while allowing Sephora to help with that empowerment. Each client was to experience Sephora as the setting and the fixtures and products as the props or tools of authoring her own story.”

UC CO-OPS BOOSTED STUDENTS’ SKILLS

According to Bukovec, her required UC

cooperative education

semesters played a big part in her success with the PAVE contest, since she had two co-op semesters with a New York City experiential marketing and branding agency called MKG. There, she was able to work closely with successful brands “which taught me a lot about brand loyalty and maintaining certain ideals throughout the design process. And this work experience really shaped my design philosophy and strong belief that every great brand has mastered the art of telling a great story, and storytelling was obviously a large factor in my design concept.”

Ferrell and Enzweiler said much the same of their

co-op

terms.

Ferrell more recently had an international co-op with a retail design company in Zurich, Switzerland, called Michelgroup GmbH. She stated, “I am very thankful to have had this opportunity because I learned so much at this co-op that was applicable to the PAVE competition. Retail is a very interesting sector of design. Before my training at my latest co-op, I was unaware of the many unique needs in these types of spaces. My experience at the Michelgroup along with my PAVE retail studio at the University of Cincinnati has shown me that I have a true passion for retail design. I look forward to hopefully pursuing a career in this area in the near future.”

Enzweiler has had co-ops with HOK, a global design, architecture, engineering and planning firm, and with Walt Disney Imagineering: “From HOK, I took lessons of detailing and materiality. My most recent semester, working as a Walt Disney Imagineer, provided me with so much inspiration of theming and creating a setting for your guest that completely transforms any prior experience they have had before.”

While Ferrell won a $5,000 PAVE prize, Bukovec a $2,500 prize in the contest and Enzweiler a $1,500 prize, all said the best part of the competition was the chance to work with leaders in the retail design field. During their studio course, the students heard from trend experts at LPK, an international branding and design agency, and from design strategists at FRCH, an international interior design and architecture firm. Professionals from both firms also provided critiques of the UC students’ work.

And as part of winning the contest, the UC students were recognized at PAVE’s December gala in New York City which allowed them to make valuable industry connections.

According to Ferrell, doing well in the competition allowed the students to better prepare for work with a client in the design industry and to make connections for the future: “As a student, the best part of participating in the competition was the opportunity to be recognized for all of our hard work. This was the first studio we have had that really felt like we were working with a client. The competition regulations gave us the flexibility to be creative; however, taught us the importance of designing within a program. Winning this competition was exciting for me because it felt as if I had pleased the clients needs while also creating a design that I was truly proud of. This competition helped to prepare all of us for future work in the design industry.”

• See the 2014 national ranking earned by UC’s undergraduate interior design program.

• Apply to UC’s undergraduate interior design program.