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Why We Buy
BUILDING HYPE AROUND TYPE
The #TYPE show’s visual identity, designed by Yeh.
An expert in consumer behavior shares strategies for stores BY ALEX JOSEPH
Smiljana Peros
Despite the shift from print to digital publishing, typography remains the soul of visual communication design. #TYPE, the inaugural exhibition of FIT’s new Creative Technology minor, showcased the best student typographic designs from such courses as Introduction to Kinetic Typography, Immersive Publication Design, Digital Layout Design, Design for Screen-Based Media, and Intro to User Experience Design. “Often people look at typography as an isolated field of study and don’t realize it’s part of every aspect of design,” said C.J. Yeh, professor and assistant chair of Communication Design and coordinator of the Creative Technology minor. Examples of professional projects were displayed alongside student works to demonstrate the link between the coursework and current industry practices. The exhibition was on view from January 26 to February 6 in Gallery FIT at The Museum at FIT.
President Brown, Representative Maloney, and Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen.
Economic Impact Report Proves that
Fashion Is Big Business
Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (NY-12), joined by New York City Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Alicia Glen and President Joyce F. Brown, released a new report on the economic impact of the fashion industry on February 18. The announcement, made at FIT, coincided with New York Fashion Week—a biannual event that attracts more than 200,000 visitors to the city and generates nearly $900 million in total economic impact. The report, compiled by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, of which Maloney is the ranking member, shows the importance of fashion as an economic driver. The industry—including design, manufacturing, wholesale, and retail—provides approximately 183,000 jobs in New York City, about 6 percent of the city’s private-sector workforce.
Lorenzo Ciniglio
Empowering Women to Speak Up Online
On March 6, Suyeon Kim, Fashion Design ’17, was named the top designer from FIT at the 17th annual Fusion Fashion Show, a competition between FIT and the Parsons School of Design. She described her neoprene and laser-cut vinyl garments as “feminine with unique constructions inspired by the distinct glacial formations of Iceland.” The four shows, held at Parsons this year, were attended by a total of 2,500 people. Parsons won Best Overall School, breaking FIT’s three-year winning streak.
Did you know that only 8.5 percent of Wikipedia editors are women? On March 8, International Women’s Day, the FIT community participated in a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, a group effort of women (and people of other genders) to write pages about women, to push that statistic higher. On March 3, the related Women and Technology Symposium featured three female tech stars: Grace Choi, founder and CEO of Mink, the first printable makeup system; industrial designer Krystal Persaud, director of product design at littleBits, which produces electronic building blocks for inventors; and creative technologist Madison Maxey, co-founder and president of The Crated, a startup developing wearable technology. The events were organized by the Information Technology Division and the Gladys Marcus Library, and were supported by an FIT Diversity Grant.
QUICK READ Director Mark Osborne presented his new animated feature, The Little Prince, to a packed house in the Haft Auditorium on March 14, four days before it was to debut in the U.S. The domestic release has now been delayed, though the film has already grossed $95 million worldwide. 6
hue | spring 2016
Six Fashion Design students specializing in intimate apparel received a total of $15,000 in scholarships at the Femmy Awards, the Underfashion Club’s annual event hosted this year by burlesque icon Dita Von Teese on February 2.
On March 11, director Eric Pellerin de Turckheim presented his documentary, Hubert de Givenchy: A Life in Haute Couture, about the legendary fashion designer. It was the first film shown in the School of Art and Design’s Dean’s Dialogue series.
Recently, the consumer expert Paco Underhill was helping a European jewelry brand plan a store in Beverly Hills. In France and Italy, its branches have a private chamber for purchases of $100,000 or more. European luxury shoppers, usually from old money, appreciate discretion (especially if they’re buying for someone other than their spouse). But the California location wouldn’t need the secret room, Underhill argued: nouveaux-riches Americans like having an audience when they spend. Fortune 50 companies pay Underhill and his firm, Envirosell, handsomely for such insights. Everyone else can read the editorials he writes for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and his books, including Why We Buy, which has been translated into 27 languages. In January, 13 executives from around the world came to FIT’s Center for Continuing and Professional Studies for his eight-day course, “The Science of Shopping.” Participants studied how every aspect of the commercial environment affects consumer behavior, learned principles of design for stores and e-commerce, discussed strategies for changing shoppers’ perceptions of their brands, and conducted a case study of an actual retailer. Traditionally, companies looking to improve sales conduct consumer surveys. But what people say and what they actually do are often quite different. Shoppers, Underhill says, frequently underestimate the time they spend in stores and may even misremember what they purchased. That’s where the science part of his job comes in. Envirosell analyzes video of stores and hires trackers to secretly observe how people shop. One of Envirosell’s first clients was a struggling drugstore chain. Scrutinizing the stores’ checkout process on video, they noticed people arriving at the registers with their arms laden with items. Simply by placing shopping baskets in a more convenient location, Envirosell helped increase the average purchase by 18 percent. Underhill says 20,000 jobs were saved as a result. Increasing sales is a perennial business challenge, but recent social and cultural changes have left retailers more vulnerable than ever. In their marketing materials, many major brands still cast models who don’t represent the global shopper. “Imagine three women at the MAC counter at Selfridges,” Underhill says. “One might be the third wife of a Somali warlord, another the daughter of a Kazakh executive, and the third a Pakistani ‘Sloane ranger’ [a well-bred Londoner like the ones DAVID DePASQUALE, ILLUSTRATION ’10
spotted in Chelsea’s Sloane Square]. They’re not peaches and cream.” And while the average web designer is under 30, the person perusing luxury brands online may be considerably older. Our corneas yellow as we age, affecting the way we see color: a yellow background on your site may blunt your message by making the text harder to read. Though stores have traditionally been owned, designed, and managed by men, the empowered female shopper is altering the retail landscape. The sensuous environment of Victoria’s Secret is one obvious result. Underhill also appreciates the ingenuity of Pirch, a store that specializes in modern bathrooms and kitchens. A typical sale ranges from $40,000 to $60,000. Through an innovative partnership with Tesla Motors, a woman can browse shower fixtures while her husband test-drives a Model S (or, presumably,
vice versa). Another creative idea is employed by Asiye’s Boutique in Connecticut, which sells prom, homecoming, and specialty dresses using the tagline “Noticeably Unique.” To guarantee that no one else is wearing the same style, each dress is registered to a particular event or school. With all this change, it’s a stressful time in the retail world, but Underhill almost makes the challenge seem like an intellectual game that’s fun to puzzle out. How different, how much more pleasurable shopping would be if every store employed his ideal mix of artful play and scientific rigor. FIT will offer “The Science of Shopping” again in June. Participants who complete the course will earn an FIT/SUNY Professional Development certificate. Find out more and register at fitnyc. edu/shopping or call 212 217.7715. hue.fitnyc.edu
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