Amazing Retail Designs
Retailers across North America are upping their game, enlisting A-list design firms from inside and outside the cannabis industry to stand out and to keep customers coming back for years to come.
While some of the following stores reside in well-established markets and set the bar high for competitors, others operate in newer markets and act as ambassadors for the entire industry.
Marijuana Venture spoke with the leading designers behind many of these retail stores to get insight on the design decisions and why they work in their respective markets.
STIIIZY
Los Angeles, California
Brash, forward-thinking and 100% LA, STIIIZY dispensaries are the retail realization of the cannabis brand’s massive social media presence, one with a cult following that is only rivaled by Cookies.
“This was one of the first stores we did where social media was very important,” says designer Gi Paoletti, the principal of GP Design Lab. “They wanted it to be Instagrammable, and they wanted it to have a big ‘wow’ factor from the moment you walked in. What I did was I tried to give them layers of wow.”
STIIIZY’s flagship location in Downtown Los Angeles delivers on its splashy online identity. Visitors enter the store through a nine-foot-wide projection tunnel which spirals around them and widens to 15 feet wide before they enter the sales floor. The 6,500-square-foot store is populated with towering fixtures and artwork that stretch upward toward the 30-foot ceiling. The store houses plenty of photo-op sections for visitors and covert marketing spaces for vendors.
“This is one of the first companies I worked for that wanted to monetize the space as much as possible,” Paoletti says. “We built in a lot of opportunities for the cannabis brands that they sell to advertise on the screens, but then also to position their products where they want it in the display.”
Paoletti blended the screens into the fixtures in a way that makes them feel as though they are integral to the store’s modern design aesthetic.