Pop-ups: is this the end of the line?
Taste Magazine, published by ico Design
Christian Ducker, of architecture and interior design firm Gundry & Ducker, discusses pop-ups with Taste Magazine and explains why corporate businesses are ruining the fun
"The original concept of a pop-up was all about being quick, cheap, experimental and doing something without capital investment. That idea is definitely tired now, if not quite over.
The corporates have got in on the act and are now putting their branding all over shipping containers and calling them pop-ups. For me, there has to be something new and a bit risky about a pop-up – many of them have now lost track of what they were originally trying to say.
Each project should have a specific end date and must be limited — that’s the whole point. A pop-up is to some degree a stage set designed to illustrate an idea, not made to last and not real.
If a pop-up is done the wrong way, it can definitely harm a brand. You could call it ‘Embarrassing Parent Syndrome’ — when too much money is thrown at a project to make it look slick and it ends up looking cynical. Established brands with big budgets should resist the urge.
If you’re interested in trying something new, attempt a pop-up but don’t lose focus of why you’re doing it, and don’t let it hang around long enough for people to get sick of it.
There are still some great pop-ups out there. MVMNT Café in Greenwich is part space, part graphics installation — it looks like an exploded billboard. The materials were cheap, so the creators had to find something different to do with them. Cinerolium, the pop-up cinema in Clerkenwell, was also great. Taking a building and completely reimagining its use is what a pop-up should be about.
In future, I think we’ll see more of the continued evolution towards creating temporary community spaces. Facilitating people to set up installations and temporary businesses in buildings that nobody wants is not just a constructive idea, it’s also going to become really important in the near future in our cities. It will be less about using gimmicks to create PR opportunities and more about creating useful areas out of unused spaces.
If a food client came to me and wanted to do a pop-up, I’d actually suggest doing a market stall instead. It’s a traditional but effective method of testing out a new food idea, and one that can closely reflect what you want your brand to actually be about.
If they were determined to do a pop-up, I’d recommend putting a lot of thought and creativity into whatever they do, but not a lot of money."
This article first appeared in Taste Magazine, produced and designed by ico Design.
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