Trending Topics & Takeaways from 2024

Miller Zell celebrated its 60th anniversary this past summer. Our longevity in the business of designing and executing great brand experiences at scale is rooted in purposeful innovation that serves our clients’ diverse and evolving customers.

We don’t spend much time looking backwards, but when we do it’s in order to better understand what’s now and next in retail.

So, as we transition from 2024 to 2025, let’s take a walk through some trending topics and takeaways and high-performance blog posts from the past year that will provide insights into what’s ahead.

12 Effective Décor and Wayfinding Signage Examples [+Photos]

Retail and other branded environments are diverse in terms of goals, layout and customer experiences, but they always will feature multiple types of décor and wayfinding signage.

Here are a few of our current favorites — examples that highlight the power of effective signage and décor, enhancing the customer experience. When looking at these, we considered many different factors, like design, digital integration and audience receptiveness to make sure we gave the most thorough explanations as to their effectiveness.

Whether they hang eight feet in the air or mark a must-see product, these examples demonstrate outstanding opportunities to elevate printed graphics and custom displays.

Three Focuses for AI in Retail Design

AI possesses vast potential in all industries, and retail is no exception. But it should be purposefully and strategically integrated into your customer and associate experiences.

As noted by Paul Wolski, Miller Zell’s SVP and creative director, “AI output is only as good as the ability of the user to articulate the vision and direct and shape it.”

So, understanding AI as an exciting and useful but not necessarily magical new tool in the design kit, here are three ways AI can contribute to and enhance retail design.

AI can be paired with new technology to create impressive customer experiences.

Getting Phygital: A NY Marathon Experience

Citizens wants more from their event marketing than simply placing their logo on a building, a venue or a piece of swag. They view sponsorships as opportunities to activate their brand outside of a traditional bank branch, with attractive experiences that are designed to engage people and leave a lasting impression (with potential future customers).

Together, Miller Zell has helped create memorable Citizens brand activations for the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Giants and New Jersey Devils, to name a few.

This year, the renowned New York City Marathon was added to that roster.

Photograph by Bluewater

Designing for Retail Reality: Balancing Freedom and Framework

After 60 years of being rooted in retail, Miller Zell understands the importance of grounded creative solutions. This philosophy is critical to feasible design and is key to our competitive strength.

Design that hasn’t been pressure tested often becomes too expensive or impractical to build at scale — or even build just that one store. Designing with the end in mind avoids a whole host of issues like:

• Costly combinations of materials
• Rigid designs that don’t adapt to diverse footprints
• Designs that don’t properly support staff performance
• New creative elements that don’t feel brand-right to customers

Ensure your creativity in the design performs with a few mindset shifts here.

Embrace real guardrails in retail design. 

How to Get Creative with Retail Space Optimization

Experimenting with and measuring the returns of various store layouts and configurations based on seasonal offerings, discounts, new products, customer engagement and product visibility is a continual process. Informed design and innovative store strategy requires planning and data collection to interpret what works best, not to mention gondolas and fixtures that are flexible and durable.

Here are four focuses for developing layout innovations that optimize your store spaces, no matter the footprint.

Space optimization is always a goal inside stores, and its best practices and solutions evolve just like any other part of the business.

That’s a look back. So, what’s ahead? Stay tuned!