Brandscape Architects

After a trip, a move, and a short ailment, I’m back wandering the streets of Camden.  At times, I’ve been doing so in the company of representatives from corner shop brands. 

Each ad hoc display is an assemblage of material brought together by different actors, and branding reps play an important part in this curation.  As well as information about current promotions, these reps provide shops with a bounty of branded materials, including carrier bags, canopies, posters, stickers, sign boards, Ramadan schedules, Oyster card holders, window displays, leaflets, and pads of sticky notes.  While some of this material is used at the discretion of shopkeepers, materials are most often put up by the reps themselves.  The reps also advise shopkeepers on styles of display and, when allowed, reorganise products.  They may, for example, move their products to the front and centre of a display or assemble like products so direct comparisons can be made by consumers.

As discussed in earlier posts, brands become markers for ad hoc shops and help announce shops’ presence in space.  The identities of brand and shop are intertwined, especially in kiosks, which seldom display a business name.  To discuss these connections with a brand representative, I suggested how the Wall’s sign acts like the barber pole of the corner shop.  To further my analogy, he told me his posters are like the hairstyle photos inside the barber shop – they tell customers what’s on offer and educate on the latest styles.  

Competition is fierce for surface area and – with shop keepers’ permission – reps will cover the promotional materials of others.  Although reps remove outdated posters, layers of material are evident on all surfaces.  Constant visits to these shops ensure that materials are current, unobscured, and in good shape.

Material properties of the promotional stuff and the shops themselves pose challenges to the reps.  In one shop, packing tape doesn't adhere well to a new "silent" plastic newspaper box.  In another, a stairwell in front of a shop window makes applying stickers a challenge for Lyca reps, whose stickers are sticky only on the back.  Unlike Oyster stickers with double-sided adhesive, they cannot be applied from the inside.  Each new addition is documented with photographic evidence and submitted to the brands’ head office. 

Some reps explain that shop keepers are fortunate to don their brand.  They believe the benefits of brand association are payment enough.  Others offer shop keepers product vouchers or cash to display their promotional materials.  In either case, many brand representatives strike exclusive deals with shop keepers, to limit the presence of other branding on the shop front.  In businesses with such small margins, these deals are hugely advantageous.  Interactions between brands and shop keepers are not without dispute.  Negotiations for exclusivity are on-going and some shop keepers shared their frustration after waiting months for canopies promised after reps reorganised their displays.  Many are still waiting. 

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

There are almost 80 ad hoc shops in my study area.  Delineating the area took some consideration -- walking, mapping, counting, reflecting -- but when the dust settled, I found myself looking at an area that behaved very like my neighbourhood when I lived in WC1N.  I lived on Mecklenburgh Square through my first year in London and will return there in September.  Although my flat was towards the eastern edge, daily life pulled me westward, where ad hoc shops are woven around cultural landmarks, educational institutions, and other wide-ranging commercial offerings.

It strikes me how clustered these shops are and how they stick to the thoroughfares -- Tottenham Court Road, Southampton Row, and Gray's Inn Road.  Economies of agglomeration?  I don't think that's it.  The reasons are surely complicated, relating to history, built form, zoning, and shifts in neighbourhood composition.  And I also think they go with the flow; the current locations relate to pedestrian traffic around transit nodes, main streets, and institutions.  The British Museum is obviously a major anchor for ad hoc action and fruit stall vendors told me they would never consider locating away from a Tube entrance.

Although it may seem unsound for corner shops to locate so close together -- take the four at the northern corner of my site, for example -- it seems each specialises as a result.  Some sell lotto tickets; some trade in magazines; some provide produce; some stock newspapers.  Others don't.  Apparently corner shops in the area defy popular convention in at least two ways.  One, they aren't all distributed equally through the urban area to supply residents with daily essentials.  And two, they are seldom found on corners. 

Displays of Jubilation

Over the last month, one object was particularly visible at those ad hoc shops selling souvenirs.

The Union Jack flag featuring a cameo of the Queen (sporting a sunny yellow ensemble) was seen all over London through the Jubilee celebrations… second only, perhaps, to the visibility of unadulterated Union Jacks.  The way it was flown at shops and kiosks often made it seem more like a shop-front adornment than a product for sale.  In this way, the shops stood as expressions of neighbourhood celebration.  The flag also became part of an elaborate stage for the display of other things.

Another Jubilee object was particularly prominent along Tottenham Court Road.  At the three kiosks selling handbags, luggage, and souvenirs, paper Elizabeth II masks were affixed to the retractable handles of rolling suitcases.  I love how the masks seem to come alive through the angles of their placement – the little tilts of the head and position of the elastic – and how the suitcases themselves become regal – but comically dumpy – bodies for the heads above.

Although I thought these clever displays may be emulating each other, it seems these three kiosks share the same managers.  This presents an interesting set of questions about local practice, curation, and ad hoc-ness; in any case, their displays do make me smile.

Stack in the Box

In front of corner shops, the space between the thresholds and the property line is often furnished with a number of things.  These may include various types of fruit displays, Wall’s signs, lotto displays and signage, newspaper racks, flowers, sandwich boards, and postcard racks, among others. 

While most of these things are moved inside at night, at many corner shops, news agents and kiosks, one large box remains outside.

In my neighbourhood, phone card advertisements are often affixed to these boxes.  Alternatively, they are fashioned with metal and plastic frames used to display current magazine covers.  In either case, they show the layering of stickers, paint, practice, wear and tear.

Their mystery was solved at the news agent on Euston Road.  The keeper explained that his large blue metal box is used for early morning newspaper deliveries and as a place to deposit old papers and magazines. 

Then he let me see inside.

OpenType

To locate material threads through the neighbourhood, I've been making typologies, meant to highlight not sameness, but difference.  The rectangular "Food & Wine" signs below all jut out from shop fronts at a right angle. They are all made on acrylic panels and encased in metal.  Many glow from the inside.  They announce the shop and its unique identity through font, kerning, leading, and colour. 

 

These "Off Licence" shops sell wine, of course, and often sell food as well.  (A rose by any other name...?)  It's interesting as well that, although many are not open 24 hours, some still read: Off Licence Open.

These open signs aren't all from corner shops, but are also part of the neighbourhood's signage landscape.  Each is composed of coloured flashing LED lights and most share the same no-nonsense all-caps sans-serif font.  Still, each is different from the next.

 

Writing's on the Wall's

At Goldsmiths’ urban photography summer school last July, I became fixated on the Wall’s ice cream sign that corner shops place on the pavement. Like the barber pole, these signs act as landmarks, announcing not only the treats inside, but also the shops in urban space.

The signs also illuminate the everyday practice of shopkeepers and highlight how mass-produced things acquire individual character through placement and use.

More recently, I have been thinking about the relationship between materiality of corner shops and the fabric of the city. The Wall’s ice cream sign can be seen as an urban London icon. Is it coincidence that the Wall’s sign shares colour and form with the other more celebrated London icons?