Planning a retail design project? What to know before hiring an agency

Hiring a commercial design agency is a big decision, so knowing what to have in place before approaching one can save you time, keep your project within budget and make sure expectations are streamlined from the start.

A clear brief is a great place to start and can help you get the most out of the partnership. We get many enquiries and calls where clients don’t know exactly what the answers are yet, which can make it harder to understand exactly what the space needs to achieve.

So, here are 3 things to think about before briefing a design agency...

Understand your constraints - budget and timeline

Understanding your budget and timeline is a great place to start. A design agency can work with different budgets and timescales, but these will naturally influence what the final space can look like.

Being open about your budget allows the agency to tailor the brief and design around a realistic vision. If we know your budget from the outset, we can design a space using materials, finishes and a scale that works within it.

Being transparent about your timeline is just as important. Design time, supplier lead times, production and the build itself all need to be considered to make sure the project can realistically be delivered when you need it.

Define what the space needs to achieve - what problem does it solve for you or your customer?

Knowing what your space needs to do, whether that’s a workspace for your team, a retail store or an event space, is essential. This is how your design can begin to address the problems you’re facing and help achieve your goals.

With a workspace, your problem might be focus, perhaps the space is too noisy, but you still need to maintain a collaborative environment. In this case, we could look at introducing quiet working pods.

With an event space, perhaps you struggle to get people onto your stand. The design then needs to focus on catching attention in a busy environment.

Decide what success looks like

Leading on nicely from this is knowing what success specifically looks like for you. Is it catching more attention, hitting sales goals or creating a happier, more productive team?

Success will look different for every brand and every space. Using the workspace example, one business might want a happier team, while another needs an environment that helps people work more closely together. For a retail store, success might mean bringing more footfall in from a busy high street or encouraging customers to spend longer in the space.

Final thoughts

A strong brief doesn’t mean you need to have all the answers before approaching a design agency. But having a clear understanding of your constraints, the problems you’re trying to solve and what success looks like gives everyone a much stronger starting point.

Planning a new commercial space? Get in touch with our team and we can help you turn your ideas into reality...