Waldenbooks & Waldenkids
Rosenberg Kolb provided a cost effective prototype design for these mall stores on a mass rollout program. The stores incorporate a new Waldenkids department adjoining the main store, but with a separate entrance and a new identity. Rosenberg Kolb designed a new storefront, interior and layout using Waldenbooks standard components, new signage, graphics, and custom artwork.
The design uses new organic textural finishes to present a warmer, more-inviting image than the traditional "vinyl coated" mall store. The storefront features a stucco finish accented with wood windows. The brown stucco signage band and grid-patterned wood transom are picked up by the case goods and furniture on the interior. Materials were chosen to be inviting, durable and inexpensive.
The new Waldenkids department incorporates many of the same design choices used in the main store, but is lighter, more colorful, and more playful. To provide a visual presence within the main store, Rosenberg Kolb originally designed an archway of open books as the entrance to the Waldenkids area. This design was later replaced by a proprietary arrangement with Lego.
Custom artwork, produced in-house and featuring childlike drawings, provides a happy theme that is picked up as artwork on the walls, as a background for the way finding and category signage, and in collateral materials such as bookmarks.