Enhancing the retail experience for National Trust visitors
National Trust: Sheffield Park & Garden
The client
We work with our client, the National Trust property Sheffield Park & Garden (SPG), East Sussex, on a regular basis. Projects we have undertaken for them include estate interpretation and wayfinding projects, as well as print, signage and interior design.
The brief
We worked with SPG on a project to redesign the tearoom and retail area. These areas are important to the National Trust, both commercially and reputationally, as visitors come to expect the opportunity to stock up on souvenirs and to sit down for a break, with a cup of tea and a slice of cake. A refresh would hopefully make them more appealing to visitors, encouraging increased spend.
Project requirements
The design for the tearoom and retail space needed to be fresh and modern but at the same time, needed to be sensitive towards and align with SPG’s Spirit of Place and its heritage. The design also needed to be done within the spirit of the overarching National Trust brand.
What we delivered
We drew heavily on elements from the SPG estate and its rich history when we were working on the project, so that any visitor in the tearoom or retail space got a real sense of place. For example, we incorporated the SPG weathervane into a stencilled wayfinding arrow to direct visitors into the tearoom, form the retail area. We also created a wall graphic featuring a black swan swimming in a teacup – the black swans representing Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s black swans, which were moved to SPG during the Second World War for safety.
One standout feature we designed into the retail space was a bookshelf in the shape of a stylised tree which we felt provided a nice link to the many wonderful tree species that exist in the SPG gardens and wider estate.
To complement the tearoom design, we also created some new SPG-branded packaging, allowing SPG to start selling own-label food products should they wish to do so in future.