Mirroring local communities

Whole Foods Market is America's leading natural and organic food retailer with $3.5b in quarterly sales (2016). The 80,000 member team works to create store environments that are inviting, fun, unique, informal, comfortable, attractive, nurturing and educational. "We want our stores to become community meeting places where our customers come to join their friends and to make new ones."

I was contracted by the Southeast Regional Creative Team to provide content for café interiors and wayfinding signage for three new Whole Foods Market stores. Integrating ethnographic research into their design practice extended and deepened Whole Foods' corporate strategy of growth through store-customization in lieu of acquisitions. Since 2010, this culturally-focused strategy has increased quarterly sales per square foot by $1.3B.