Lantern Fractal

To celebrate the season of light, NY's fabled 5th avenue, Armani, took the zeitgeist of multi-colored Christmas lights and expanded the notion into a larger format for their 5th Avenue location. From closeup at sidewalk level, a wall of light was created with the neat stacking of inner-lit cubes of various colors. As you enter the store and look up into the atrium, the wall of cubes starts to rise and twist into a more lantern-like configuration. More than 270 custom made cubes were created for this installation. It should be noted that this project was a collaboration between Armani's design team, the metal manufacturer of the frames, the company that hung all the lanterns inside the 3-storey atrium and Geoff Howell Studio who electrified and colorized all of the lanterns and installed the sidewalk level portions.

Lantern Fractal part 2

Emporio Armani, like the 5th Avenue Armani, also bedecked their windows with a flourish of multi-colored lanterns.

A 'rivet'ing Christmas!

For holiday 2012, the inspiration for the John Varvatos windows was "'your own front door' like the line from the song "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." This window had 2 iconic NYC front doors and 2 iconic 'country' front doors, all with a very 19th century industrial twist, made to look like everything in the John Varvatos holiday world was covered in sheet metal, held together by rivets. Even the wreaths and the stack of firewood by the door were painted to look like metal. Working with the visual team at Varvatos, incorporating Geoff's knowledge and love of historic architecture, the GHS team produced all the backdrops using layers of MDF in intricate patterns to create the feeling of carved wood, stone and brick and scenic painted to look like antique steel. The pieces were made as flats that could be shipped in small er pieces and assembled on site to locations such as  here in New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and 2 locations in Los Angeles. 

Luxury Unwrapped

To help with Sunglass Hut's luxurious holiday presentation of gift-worthy sunglasse, we produced hundreds of hand-wrapped gold and red gift boxes, even one that magically opened and closed to reveal a particularly special pair of sunglasses. In addition we made giant hanging letters, lightboxes with graphics and other luxurious surfaces that all come together, or shall we say are 'all wrapped up' and ready for a bright holiday experience. All the photos featured in this post are from the 5th Ave. Sunglass Hut flagship. Similar installations were produced and shipped to 10 other Sunglass Huts across the nation.

  Above and below are photos of the magic box, which was engineered with a motor to continuously open and close the top lid to reveal the surprise within. In addition, the box itself featured an underlit milk plexi platform to highlight the merchandise being featured

So Cool to be Square

The latest incarnation of the Hugo Boss club room was inspired new sculptural elements in architecture and design. Collaborating with their in-house visual director, we created our interpretation of a cubist, pixellated environment. The photos above are of the entrance sculpture, 8feet high and made of light and dark cubes jutting out into space at various lengths. It gives a strong first impression to visitors and a  suggestion of what lies ahead...

Walking into you the lobby, you'll notice the black video screen surrounds which we produced to match the main reception desk.

Moving beyond the reception desk and into the clubroom which has been dramatically fitted with over 1,000 boxes hanging from the ceiling, many of them lit. We also built the mannequin platforms and risers, covered the walls with frosted acrylic mirror panels and produced the 40ft long frosted mirrored acrylic table running down the center of the  space, punctuated with bright light cubes. We also installed custom lighting for the mannequins.

At the opposite end of the clubroom is a large wall of video tiles, put together to create one large image. The video is art directed by Hugo Boss' visual director and relates to the cubist theme. 

Here you can see our custom kitchen lightboxes, fitted for this market with large industrial-sized louvers.

Branching off the clubroom are two showrooms with various areas dedicated to all the different brands. Large displays from a previous installation (See: I Go Where Hugo) were repurposed in their specific areas.

This shot shows many of the stainless steel racks that we produced, installed the HUGO signage panel and display units in the foreground.

For the new "Haberdashery" area we installed a custom black oak floor, selected new furniture and built  a cement wall with a fireplace and video monitor. We also built the shirt and tie fixtures and round table in the foreground.

The men's accessories are displayed on lacquered shelves surrounded by blond oak framed fixtures that we built.

I go where Hugo

This just in! Breaking news in New York, Hugo Boss dazzles its investors!! Word on the street is Geoff Howell Studio is behind their fabulous displays!

Seriously, Hugo Boss had a special meeting with investors to keep them updated on company directions. The clubroom in their NY offices was transformed with designs from their corporate headquarters into a large meeting room containing displays of their 7 major divisions. Each display consisted of angled risers, a large shard-like logo panel, placed in front of custom etched lucite panels fitted with electro-luminescence bands.

Note the custom sharply angled coat rack we made!

D. Porthault Ho Ho!

The fall window was so popular that Porthault decided to keep it for the holidays.  To cheer on the the season of good tidings, Luscious gold and glittering garland sparkling with lights was draped around the scene bedecked with the latest gifts galore.

Geoff adding the finishing golden touches