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.