Matt and I stopped by the Nike concept store down in Laguna the other day.
Basically they have a mix of Nike, Hurley and Converse stuff and upstairs you can design and print your own shirts, sneakers or boardshorts.
This big 30' tall Dalek painting is sort of the centerpiece of the store. Basically this guy Dalek used to work as a studio assistant to Takashi Murakami before "branching out" on his own a few years back with a bunch of work in a style that completely ripped Murakami off. Now he's graduated to doing a lot of these colorful flat geometric patterns - not sure which motif I like least.
Shirt printer and heat presses inside the upstairs design lab
The store had a lot of clever little decorative details. In an age where you can buy everything for dirt cheap at Wal-Mart or on Amazon, brick and mortar retailers have to innovate and offer people more of an "experience" in order to compete. Basically retailers need to work to turn their stores into destinations that stand out and are worth talking about. It's a simple concept that a puzzlingly large number of business owners tend to completely overlook.
