In traditional Chinese culture, the jade seal is an important heirloom with inheritance significance. The seal represents the rights and integrity of not just individuals, families, but even nations. Therefore, the meaning behind the seal carries a long and glorious history in China. When we were brainstorming the design concept for this new Chow Tai Fook 2-storey brand new store in Hong Kong, we immediately associated the heritage meaning behind jewelry and seal - this design theme helps us to accentuate the precious and inherited value of jewelry.
We decorated the facade on the first floor, which faces the street with grids of vertical bars that are perpendicular to the ground and spread along the wall. The protruding heights of these vertical bars vary. We used linear lighting to brighten up some areas, so to outline this ‘transformative’ three-dimensional wall. Such an uneven surface does not only remind people of the characteristics of the seals, but also the invention of the ancient Chinese letterpress printing. We picked red colours for two reasons - the seals in the old days are always stamped in red and also it is the brand colour. Red is such a bold and striking colour, which draws customers’ attention easily and differentiate itself from the shops nearby.
Right at the entrance wall of the first floor, you can already see the added artful touch of the design of Chinese characters of the brand name ‘Chow Tai Fook’. The characters were extracted for re-creation and enclosed by a square frame individually. This has distinguished itself from the traditional brand logo and reminded people of how seals were stamped on the paper in the old days - each Chinese character was restricted to a square frame. The outlines of the characters also highlight the wall, making it more three-dimensional, as if the underside of a seal was printed on paper. The jewellery-display counters inside the shop are in cubic shapes, just like the boxes for storing seals. These cubic boxes can display not only Chow Tai Fook's jewellery, but also the sculptures we specifically designed.
Red and gray are the main color tones in the store. In a sea of gray squares, there’s a row of red squares to draw customer’s attention. The pattern of the carpet was inspired by the re-creation of the Chinese characters ‘Chow Tai Fook’. Customers can spot the reinterpretation of the brand name from the carpet pattern, as if the three Chinese characters ‘Chow Tai Fook’ were being ‘stamped’ on the carpet like a traditional jade seal.
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