Color puts Hype in the Retail Map

Hype DC of Australia is a shoe store with a difference. Their motto is ‘we search the globe, for all the latest models, all the newest styles, so you can have them first’. Specializing in trendy, youth-orientated footwear such as Adidas, Converse, Vans, and Timberland, Hype DC has a strong market image.

Hype DC recently secured one of Sydney’s prime retail positions on the corner of Market St and Pitt St Mall as its sixth Sydney outlet, and BBR Design were commissioned to design a funky shop design that reflects the Hype DC philosophy.

MiniMAC Maestro logo projection
Interior designer Trish Civiero from BBR Design initially wanted to introduce logo projection to the store and when Show Technology’s Architectural Products Manager Jonathan Ciddor demonstrated what the Martin MiniMAC Maestro could deliver, she was very keen to use the product.

“Initially I didn’t know what was available in the way of image projection technology and someone recommended Show Technology to me, “ Trish said. “Jonathan was very helpful and when he gave me a demonstration of the MiniMAC Maestro I was absolutely blown away by it! It’s a fantastic product with really good resolution on the graphics - which particularly impressed me. The fact that it can deliver a changing light show throughout the day is just a fantastic option. The pricing of the MiniMAC Maestro was also very good.

“It helped that the client was funky, fun and full of original ideas. They were ready to embrace this technology and that really helps.”

When storeowners Peter Pitt and Danny Gilbert saw the capabilities and potential of the MiniMAC Maestro together with Martin’s color changing Alien ranges it became a really exciting project.

Tight time frame
One of the more unusual aspects to this project is the extremely tight time frame in which it was designed and installed. It was imperative to have the store open in time for the busy Christmas trade.

“From the initial product demonstration to the store actually opening was only three weeks!” said Jonathan. “It certainly was not your classic design and construct project. Just after taking possession of the site Peter Pitt stood in the middle of the store, as it dried out from a fire sprinkler head fiasco during the demolitions, and asked ‘if money was no object, what would you do?’ and that’s basically what we did.

“I’m still shell shocked that the project successfully eventuated in its conceived form, but then it is the right store, the right company, the right products, and the whole approach was ideal.”

Alien color wash
The main feature to the store’s architecture is a sweeping, curved white wall situated above the cashier’s desk. The wall is a clever device by BBR Design to mask the bane of every footwear establishment, the boxed shoe stock, which in this instance is located on the mezzanine level above. It has created a great canvas for color washing and image projection. Providing the color changing on this wall are ten Martin Alien 05 recessed color changers while two Martin Alien 02 wide angle (70°) fixtures wash color over the ceiling. Another pair of narrow angle (18°) Alien 02 fixtures color the entrance column with two Alien 05 fixtures illuminating the store threshold. Image projection is by Martin MiniMAC Maestro.

Income generating Alien color for display windows
Adjacent to the store entrance on Market St are three very large display windows: each of which has three Alien 05 as well as another image projector.

These windows are income generating for Hype DC as they are sublet to suppliers for specific displays. So for the initial outlay of the VIP projectors, Hype will soon recoup their investment and then earn money on the purchase - at the same time as promoting their product range!

The main front windows of the store face onto Pitt St Mall and they house Martin Alien 05 fixtures. When designing the installation, care was taken to split the Alien 05 in the window across multiple channels. This ensures that the color combinations in each window can create a variety of looks as the colored light washes down the pole mounted footwear displays.

The vault, an area set aside for exclusive product viewing, also has three Alien 05 coloring the room. In all, the project utilizes 34 Alien fixtures.

Maestro logo and text projection
Providing the logo projection are two Martin MiniMAC Meastro, designed for high quality precision projection of patterns, images, logos, text and messages. One is situated to project onto the center of the curved wall, while the other sits at the top end of the curve, allowing it to project directly out through the front entrance onto the footpath.

“Fortunately, the paving material in Pitt St mall incorporates a metal-like fleck effect which looks like it phosphoresces when you spill light onto it,” added Jonathan. “It really makes the image look quite spectacular. The positioning of this Maestro is absolutely perfect for projecting images out through the doorway.”

A MiniMAC Maestro holds four gobos and, in this case, each one holds two gobos of lines of text and two graphics – the Hype name, the motto broken into lines and the globe graphic. While there are several moving heads that project logo and images on the market, the MiniMAC Maestro has a combination of condenser optic system and remote focus control that delivers clear, razor-sharp images. Additionally, the field of the image is very flat so there is an even distribution of light and it is larger than the entertainment MiniMAC giving superior resolution and clarity. The Maestro also indexes extremely well thus allowing the creation in this instance of horizontal lines of text that track around a curved wall.

“In most cases we’ve had to plot seven or eight steps as the text images move around the curve” explained Jonathan. “The Maestro has remote focus so that with each step we set a new focus and, as well as cross fading to get its positional move, it cross fades the focus.”

Martin, Show Technology and Beyond AV deliver the goods
Beyond AV were contracted to supply and install the equipment and were called upon to perform some real magic. Site time was at a premium, as was floor space in the store, with so many trades working in the confines of this particular retail store. Even more than usual, the investment of time running cables early in the fit-out brought untold benefits as the countdown to opening closed in.

“On a really tight installation such as this you need your manufacturers to really deliver the goods,” said Con Andrews, Director of Beyond AV. “Out of the box and it works first time. On this project “First time, every time! There just wasn’t a second to spare.”

And just as important, the installation has been running 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, for over a month since the store commenced trading. It has been 100% reliable and hasn’t missed a beat.

The system was programmed using Martin LightJockey on a PC and then uploaded to the Martin LightCorder DMX replay unit. This facilitates a variety of “looks” at different times of the day and night and also starts and shuts down the system.