When and where does taste matter? It doesn’t seem to for Macy’s?

A few weeks ago I wrote an article: [When does design matter?](n8.tumblr.com/post/18194968750/when-does-design-matter).

I thought I’d write a sequel because of a photo I stumbled on that I took a month ago.

The “too long; didn’t read” of my last post was: I am perplexed as to when something needs to look nice and even operate well to make some kind of difference to a business.

I absolutely love well thought out design. Style and function. What eludes me however is a formulaic confidence to know when and where it matters.

Surely at a department store full of designer clothing at one of the wealthiest malls in Illinois, form and function are going to matter.

Let’s take a look at that photo.

That’s the shoe section of Macy’s at Woodfield Mall of Schaumburg, IL.

This store is a fucking shithole.

I’m not a brilliant photog so this picture doesn’t do it justice. But you might be able to grasp a bit of the filth and chaos of this place. There are shoes scattered everywhere. I’m not even sure why they bother with racks because they aren’t facilitating anything.

The carpeted floor is a really disgusting touch. The beige has turned into grey. At the bottom left corner of the photo, I hope that’s just some tissue paper from a box. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s toilet paper. :)

Earlier before this photo was taken, I had tried on some shirts. Same story over in the men’s section. Clothing scattered everywhere. There was a rack to put clothes on that you had tried on but weren’t going to buy. I wish I took a photo of this thing too. You couldn’t believe your eyes.

The rack had gotten to the point where you had to throw the clothes at it and hope some of them stuck onto other clothes so they would remain suspended from the filthy floor.

Glancing around the store, you saw a big reason for this mess. There just doesn’t seem to be enough employees. They seem busy. They’re at the registers. People are buying this stuff. But still, today I saw the photo and smugly went over to Google Finance.

I’m saying to myself: “My taste in store design and aesthetics is important wisdom the CEO of Macy’s should take heed of. I bet their stock price looks as shitty as this store does…”

Macy’s March Same-Store Sales Jump 7.3%

The stock keeps on climbing.

If you had asked me “what should we do to get our store sales to jump 7.3%”, I would have thought to improve the design and cleanliness of shopping at your stores?“ Clearly, they didn’t need to do that.

Of course, this is just one store. But I’ve seen other Macy’s in Chicago and this isn’t a unique experience.

Somehow Macy’s has figured out something about selling clothes to folks that is much more important than keeping a store looking good or providing more customer service. Maybe they’ve figured out the sweet spot in which clothing designers to stock. Or they’re pricing everything brilliantly. I don’t know. But it’s not cleanliness, that’s for sure.

What can you or I take away from this? I’m not entirely sure as it’s a lesson I am still learning constantly.

Probably at the very minimum, don’t assume anything. Don’t assume making something prettier or easier to understand is actually going to matter. It might; it might not.

The best designers are the ones who have truly figured out where design needs to be applied and where it can be forgotten. Or at least where it can be ignored for the time being. They’ve discovered what is the most valuable part of the experience for the customer that needs to be designed well, and what can be secondary.

I’ll leave you with this great video from JD Hooge from Instrument, a digital design agency doing some fantastic work. A great moment is at the end (skip to minute 43:00).

Someone in the audience asks:

…I need to brand myself. A logo and a site and colors. And I can’t really commit to what my identity is. I don’t want to be too trendy or too professional or too polo shirt, so any advice on the direction I should go?

JD Hooge replies:

I wish (Aaron) Draplin was here…We tried to hire him once to make icons for our website…And he was like: "You don’t even need a website, man. Just put up a punk rock photo up there and you’re good. ”

You’ll need to watch. But it’s one of the reasons Aaron Draplin is so revered as a designer. He knows where and when design is going to make a difference.