Why rebranding is about far more than a new look
In retail, rebranding is often seen as a cosmetic refresh. In reality, it’s a strategic opportunity...
2025 was a year of growth and exciting projects across our key disciplines Place and Space, Branding and Retail Design Management.
We worked across a number of Workspace sites, enhancing communal spaces to better meet tenant needs. Drawing inspiration from the rich histories of these remarkable buildings, we developed interior design and graphic treatments that brought each building’s unique story to life. This renewed sense of place and identity resonated strongly with tenants, and the improved entrances, front-of-house areas, breakout spaces, and corridors were all received with great enthusiasm.
Our design involvement at Vox Studios led Workspace Group to win the Flexible Space Association, Workspace Design Award 2025.
We are delighted to be supporting Bristol Airport in the development and expansion of its Departure lounge. Working closely with the team, we transformed the space through customer flow analysis, interior design, improved seating and a new, elevated look and feel to deliver more space, more choice and more opportunities for passengers to shop, eat and relax before a flight.
We recently partnered with Morphe to refresh their concession within Selfridges. Our work included tailored visual merchandising for hero categories and bespoke storage solutions designed to maximise functionality. A distinctive 3D-printed brushstroke artwork was integrated into the high-level façade, adding a bold, brand-led visual anchor to the space. Every component was engineered to enhance usability, durability, and instore storytelling.
Building on our long relationship with the BHF, we have continued to work across their retail and fundraising. In their new, sustainably focused ‘Store of the Future’ in Edinburgh, we connected branded touchpoints, established instore messaging strategy and communications, introduce new branded wall graphic treatments and updated instore POS – work that was subsequently rolled out across their 700-store estate.
We also supported various retail campaigns, including creative for their flagship fundraising event, the London to Brighton bike ride.
We are well versed in designing shop fronts for tenants that are both creative and sustainable whilst aligning to the centre’s design guides. For Jack & Jones, we utilised the Landlord spaces above the Tenant’s shopfronts to extend the shopfront design to a double height space – part of our design strategy for Silverburn.
We suggested this design, as well as bringing in upper level illumination to help elevate their design during lower daylight hours.
We have continued to develop innovative wellbeing spaces for National Policing, designed to support staff that work under intense pressure. These spaces promote relaxation, mental health, and productivity with a mix of quiet zones, communal areas, yoga studios, and sensory rooms. We delivered a full design package of interior and graphic design, carefully curated to enhance the overall experience and foster a healthier workplace culture.
Continuing and strengthening our partnership with the team at The Liberty, Romford we advanced the roll out of our refreshed brand identity across the centre. This year included the realisation of new entrance signage concepts as well as continued improvements to interior areas and car parks, enhancing the overall customer experience.
We provided end to end guidance to Lovisa, helping them to achieve approval of their store design at The Liberty. As part of our new Centre Design Strategy, we are extending shopfronts full height, giving tenants more presence on the mall. Lovisa were one of the first units to implement this design ethos. We worked collaboratively to take their single height shopfront to a double height unit, creating a dynamic beacon on the corner in this prominent position.
We continue to build on our partnership with the Met Police – this year delivering the first ambitious next-generation community policing hub in Kidbrooke. From developing a refreshed visual identity with more softened iconography to designing warm, welcoming interiors with localised graphics, our work has helped balance accessibility with security, while forging a warmer, more engaging public experience.
Our RDD team helped Greggs develop designs for their shopfront at Southside, Wandsworth. As part of our environmental strategy, we worked to retain the existing shopfront, but to help inject the brands personality through the use of interesting textures, lighting and finishes. The old shopfront was very heavily framed, so we suggested using timber finishes instead of the usual brand grey to help elevate the design and avoid it feeling too heavy – this also reflected the design language of the interior concept.
We continued our partnership with Ben & Jerrys franchisees, rolling out Scoop Shop store experiences to additional locations across the UK, including Windsor, Edinburgh, Peterborough and Brighton. Our continued involvement in implementation of store guidelines has maintained a consistent look and feel across their growing branded estate.