Surprising Beauty, Environment

June 21, 2018

Surprising Beauty

EF Contract 2018 Neocon Showroom

We live in a world that is full of surprising beauty. It’s easy to miss. But it’s also easy to find. To see it, all we have to do is slow down, stop and look.

For it’s first year as EF Contract, the new brand’s showroom was inspired by small, everyday moments of delight and discovery. Of Surprising Beauty. EF Contract sent out an open call to designers around the country, inviting them to share moments of surprising beauty. They received amazing submissions. The design team chose a handful of favorites for display alongside their newest collections.

With all of their attention focused on the launch of a new brand and revamped products, the team at EF Contract wasn’t able to start work on their showroom design until much much later than their competitors. Widgets & Stone worked within a tight timeline to create a simple showroom that captured EF’s brand and vision.

Designers Liz Tapp and Mark Slawson created clean displays and furnishings that would best tell the story of the new products. A simple metal hanging system for clear printed polycarbonate and metal shows off design inspirations. New tables hold custom trays of products under glass tops and actual product books or samples underneath. Custom wallpaper and printed scrim reinforce the theme of surprising beauty.

“The showroom design turned out wonderfully! We could not be more pleased with the result,” said Susan Curtis, EF Contract’s VP of Design & Marketing.

Take a virtual tour of the showroom here.

Creative Direction: Paul Rustand; Design Direction: Liz Tapp; Design: Liz Tapp, Mark Slawson; Display and Furniture Fabrication + Installation: Range Projects; Material Printing: Adams Litho; Photography in displays: Various; Photography of Showroom: Tom Abraham.

Form + Finish

September 27, 2017

Form + Finish

J+J Flooring Group 2017 Neocon Showroom

For more than a century, a small studio in Detroit has made clay into ceramic. With careful hands and lightest touch, Pewabic pottery is shaped, thrown and fired. Changing, and then changing again.

But it’s the finish that defines the work: an iconic, iridescent glaze that infuses every piece with striking movement and beautiful fluidity, perfect in its imperfections.

Earlier this year, J+J’s design team traveled to the studio, where they became part of the process. Intrigued and inspired, they returned home, asking, can a finish become the start of something new?

Guided by inspiration from lead designer Ginger Gilbert of J+J, Widgets & Stone designed the Neocon showroom to feel like a traditional pottery studio. Potter’s marks, aprons, subtle textures and glazes, framed windows, simple tables and stools help set the stage as the flooring designs come to the forefront in the interior design.

Creative Direction: Mandy Lamb; Design: Brad Dicharry, Mandy Lamb, Travis Hitchcock, Paul Rustand, Mark Slawson, Liz Tapp, Virginia Brooks; Writing: Keely Hungate, Adam Haskew.

For Show

July 10, 2017

For Show

Mannington Commercial’s Atlanta showroom

Mannington Commercial’s new show room in Atlanta is specially designed to tell the flooring company’s story: about its people, process and products. Corgan, designers of the showroom (and one of the nation’s leading architecture and interior design firms), asked Widgets & Stone to create various installations throughout the building to help tell the Mannington Story.

Collaborating with the client, Corgan Architects, Range Projects and a variety of sign makers, Widgets & Stone helped to design beautiful displays, structural infographics, bright neons and historical murals along with simple interior and exterior identification signs.

Design Direction: Mandy Lamb; Design: Travis Hitchcock, Stephanie Fast, Paul Rustand, Brad Dicharry; Sign Painting and Interior Production: Jason Meyer, Brian Burden, Range Projects.

Here today, gone tomorrow

August 10, 2016

Here today, gone tomorrow

Mannington Showroom · Neocon 2016

When Mannington approached Widgets & Stone to design not just a showroom, but an experience, for their centennial year at NeoCon 2016 at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, we knew it would be an exciting yet challenging project to tackle.

Widgets & Stone devised a “pop up” showroom that completely transforms between Day 1 and Day 2, from the floor to the ceiling. With careful planning and strategy, a hide and reveal system was employed so that both days of displays could be installed all at once for easy transition. The two different showroom experiences would drive repeat traffic to the showroom both days, as well as maximize the relatively small 2200 square foot space to show the versatility of Mannington’s products.

Day one was an energetic mosaic of color, infused with cultural inspiration from New York, Mexico City, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Chicago, with a distinctly urban feel. On day two, the same space morphed into an elegant, sophisticated showroom featuring lovely moments drawn from nature–from the grand scale of topography to the intimacy of a blown dandelion. The result was unprecedented traffic in the showroom, greater brand awareness, and happy reps.

To see more about how we changed the flooring, displays, wall colors, upholstery and more, overnight, watch the video here: https://youtu.be/Pzi_fX0G6e8

Click here to take a virtual tour of the Day One showroom and here for the Day Two Showroom.

Creative Direction: Mandy Meredith; Designers: Mandy Meredith, Liz Tapp, Travis Hitchcock, Mark Slawson, Laura Michael, Stephanie Fast; Fabrication and installation: Range Projects.

Pattern of Place

June 30, 2015

Pattern of Place

Mannington Showroom 2015

Widgets & Stone directed the full scale redesign of the Mannington Commercial Showroom in the Merchandise Mart in Chicago for the fourth year in a row. The designs showcase new products in a visually exciting and memorable way, both on the floor and in wall displays.

This year’s showroom design theme was “The Pattern of Place,” derived from the great cities and sites that influenced 2015’s new product introductions. There was a heavy emphasis on highly graphic patterns inspired by everything from tire tracks in LA to the cacti of Tucson and the city grids of DC.

Each display reinterpreted the pattern of each product, utilizing a grey veneer that cohesively brought a sophisticated hospitality feel to the space. Highly patterned pendant lights from Finland complemented the theme, and Built-ins provided functional storage for presentations while doubling as seating. Custom furniture added to the loungy feel and encouraged clients to linger longer.

Design Direction/Art Direction: Mandy Meredith; Designers: Amy Trumbull, Kerry O’Connor, Travis Hitchcock, Matt Greenwell, Bradley Dicharry; Fabrication/Design-Build: Range Projects.

The Next Big Thing: A Million Little Things

June 24, 2014

The Next Big Thing: A Million Little Things

Mannington Showroom Neocon 2014

Widgets & Stone directed the full scale redesign of the Mannington Commercial Showroom in the Merchandise Mart in Chicago for the third year in a row. The designs showcase new products in a visually exciting and memorable way, both on the floor and in wall displays.

This year’s showroom design was based on the theme of the “Next Big Thing” being “A Million Little Things” – so displays took the form of thousands of 2-inch squares (covered with Mannington’s products and colors), each making up a single big image. The STYLIST collection drew inspiration from fashion, so a large image of Debbie Harry (photographed by Steven Meisel) was used. The Connected collection drew inspiration from the Brooklyn Bridge; Design Local used an image of one of the three cities participating, Philadelphia; other displays were simple images or even symbols.

The pixel effect proved quite a delight as viewers in person could not always get far enough away to make out the full image. However, as soon as they took out a phone or a camera to photograph it, the image became immediately visible on the digital display screen.

Design Direction/Art Direction: Mandy Meredith; Designers: Amy Trumbull, Ben Dicks, Kerry O’Connor, Paul Rustand; Fabrication/Design-Build: Range Projects.

Redefined Showroom

January 10, 2014

Redefined

Mannington Commercial Showroom

Widgets & Stone directed the full scale redesign of the Mannington Commercial Showroom in the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. The designs showcase new products in a visually exciting and memorable way, both on the floor and in wall displays.

This year’s showroom design drew heavily on inspiration of Mannington’s manufacturing heritage and on the new Redefined Collection. The Redefined Collection features fashion classics reimagined as modular carpet. Made up of six products inspired by houndstooth, tweed, hexagons, and other classic patterns, Redefined is texturally rich and visually stunning.

The showroom displays featured many elements from the manufacturing facilities: giant spools for yarn, hanging racks for color standards and a wall display featuring an assembly of parts from the tufting machines. Other visually striking elements were the hexagonal LVT floor patterns and the honeycomb wall display.

Creative Direction: Mandy Meredith; Design: Mandy Meredith, Paul Rustand, Matt Greenwell, Amy Trumbull; Display Fabrication: Jason Meyer & Ray Padron.