The Item Shop is an imaginary popup store in Hamburg's shopping mall "Europapassage". The store specializes in selling video game merchandise. A whole visual identity was created with different kinds of marketing material.
For the stressful Christmas time there will be a popup store in Hamburg with the theme of video games. Since the target audience are young people, who are focused on experiencing events, the focal point of this store and the design is that the customer enters a whole new world when stepping into the store and escape their daily routines. So it is for example special that the visitor is feeling like they were directly in the game itself and will be recognized as a player, with something like a popup message on the door, asking if they would like to start the game. Possible purchases will be put in a bag titled „Inventar“/“Inventory“. Almost from the beginning it was clear to me, that I would like to design something with a retro pixel vibe.
The grid I used for my own font was reused again as a guide to layout the letters.
The start was drawing things like a controller in a minimal or pixelized style. But since not every game is trapped inside retro 8 bit restrictions, the idea was putting everything together: 1D – The lines, or code in which the game is written in 2D – Pixels or sprites 3D – Isometry or 3D rendered objects This thought became the first idea for a logo, a star combining all elements. From the outlines of the 3D cube was a grid made, similar to a pixel grid. With this grid as the base, a font was created, which was the main aspect of the Corporate Design.
The Corporate Design consists of three colors: blue, magenta and white. While the magenta is part of the neon cyberpunk scheme from the beginning of the design, because of the resemblance to neon lamps at night, the RGB blue stands for the error blue screens one can see on computers. Since the font color is white on the blue screens, white is the third color. The blue and magenta also fit for a nighttime palette and are opposites in the meanings of the colors (blue – male, pink – female) as well as where the colors are used (RGB blue and CMYK magenta). This means that everyone is welcome and spoken to with this color concept.
Post cards to give to gamer friends. All of them are games in itself, being a video
game crossword puzzle, cards against humanity card game and a tutorial for
a DIY DnD dice mat.
Tags for labeling the merchandise with DLC (downloadable content) on the front, as well as the "stats" of the item on the back, like the name, how many luck, weight and attack it gives you and the price.
Pacman on the floor in the Europapassage: showing the distance and the way to The Item Shop as a form of additional guerilla marketing.
3D visual of the stamp for correspondence; in the form of an old arcade machine.
Sketches of first ideas in the making of this visual identity.
It took multiple funky looking attempts to get the letters just right and readable -
here for the letter R.
Thank you for looking at my work!
