Case Studies

Warehouse Transforms Into Sleek Retail Pop-Up

2014 Lady Project Summit, Providence, R.I.

The Lady Project Summit is an annual event that connects fabulous entrepreneurial ladies in Providence, R.I., and features inspiring speakers like Olympic gold-medalist Michelle Kwan and Meredith Walker of Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls.

To add extra dazzle to this year’s event, Lady Project founders Sierra Barter and Julie Sygiel wanted to host a special on-site pop-up that could showcase goods made by local Lady Project members. This meant that the two-woman dream-team had to take an empty warehouse event space at the Southside Cultural Center and transform a portion it into a standalone pop-up that aligned with the polished DIY aesthetic of the merchants and brands they would be featuring. They needed the shop to be versatile because it was set-up quickly the day of the event and there needed to be merchandising flexibility. The Lady Project founders approached Visual Magnetics to create a unique pop-up shop concept that used temporary walls, custom made fixture elements, magnetic receptive graphics and digital wallcoverings to add whimsy to the space and elegantly showcase local member products.

At the event space, Visual Magnetic’s team installed a small 10 ft. x 10 ft. pop-up shop space using temporary walls skinned with changeable MagnaMedia® wallcoverings that were printed with a maple veneer and zigzagging pastel pattern to match Providence’s down-to-earth DIY roots.

A custom-made modular table and pedestals skinned in a watercolor motif brought the look together, while custom logo layers for merchants helped store customers identify emerging brands. Brushed steel shelves fitted with Visual Magnetics InvisiLock® system were locked onto the wall without any adhesives or screws to showcase smaller merchandise like mugs and needlepoint décor. All of the elements in the shop and the smaller graphic layers for merchants could be repositioned on a whim if products needed to be moved around.

“Last year, Visual Magnetics sponsored a fun, interactive photo booth for our event that had changeable backgrounds. This year we took it to a whole other level by creating an entire store using their versatile materials and fixtures,” says Barter. “On the outside store walls, we kept our original photo booth idea and inside the shop, we used wallcoverings to add to the DIY aesthetic of the store. A pop-up sounded intimidating, but Visual Magnetics made it easy to design on the fly.” View a pdf of this case study here.