Week 8, Daisy Santos, Irvine Spectrum - Site Specific

 

The Irvine Spectrum is an outdoor shopping center where shoppers are able to come across all types of stores based on their interests. Thus, as I walked around and did some shopping of my own, I noticed how soft and warm toned the spectrum is. The usage of incandescent lights all throughout the walkways, structures, and palm trees/bushes (as you can see in the photo above) is inviting, safe, and soft to the touch for this location. Based on these features, I believe the designers accomplished making this location welcoming, family-oriented, and relaxing for all types of individuals to come hang out with family/friends or simply shop in their spare time. Additionally, blue, red, and green lights are eye-catching as these colors are not in correspondence to the typical incandescent lighting being used all throughout the location. It highlights some of the festivities or attractions (the ferris wheel and christmas tree) that people can participate in as well.

There were a few stores where the lighting/theme of the store was successful and not. For instance, the Hello Kitty Cafe does an amazing job of having cold tone lights illustrating it signage outside that relate to the white skin tone that is the Hello Kitty character. The pink lights also correlates with both the hello kitty bow and theme inside and outside of the store. Everything feature, light, and even painting inside the store are cohesive with the Hello Kitty theme this store is portraying thus, this designers of this store successfully executed their intentions and representation of Hello Kitty and her world.

The store in which I claim failed to provide a cohesive and theme or aesthetic was Heat. As you can see in the photo below, this store defaults to using the incandescent lights along its structure (and that is also installed to all other stores). The lack of saturated colors or even a theme makes this store less appealing and inviting to those walking past it. The only saturated color to the store would be the red from the Heat sign but given the meaning of it's sign, one would think that this store would utilize more vibrant and powerful colors to convey clothing or merchandise that can be considered "heat" or "cool". The bright white lights inside the store also conflicts with bright red color of the sign outside. Therefore, the designers for this store failed to provide its shoppers with a theme and appeal to this store that is cohesive both inside and outside the store; making it incohesive and unappealing from a glance.