Retail design for the transport sector

The Yard Creative has successfully introduced high street commercial thinking to retail in the transport sector.

Whether the retail challenge is onboard a high-speed train, on the concourse or airside, The Yard Creative draws upon their wealth of high street knowledge to create retail experiences that increase efficiency, improve the customers experience and increases revenue.

If you would like to know more about our experience designing for the transport sector then please get in touch and we’ll be more than happy to talk through our past projects and / or your specific needs.

Below is a snapshot of the type of projects that we work on within the transport sector:

Rail Gourmet: Changing customers perspective of food and beverage onboard UK trains.
November 2009
The project is tackling issues such as customers’ lack of desire to leave their seat, quality of F&B delivered onboard and 50 years of preconceived ideas.

Thalys: Identity and communication package for the onboard bar.
April 2009
Based on the new global vision for Thalys, The Yard Creative designed a new identity and communication package for the new onboard bar in Comfort 2.

Eurostar: A new perspective to onboard retailing.
November 2008
The Yard Creative was appointed, following a recommendation, to bring a new perspective to onboard retailing and a fresh outlook based on best practice in sectors outside the transport industry.
Read more about the Eurostar project

Select Service Partners: Taking Camden food co. international.
October 2008
The key challenge was evolving the Camden food co. brand and proposition to fit with an international, airside audience. Stores have now opened airside in Indianapolis, Raleigh Durham and Larnaca airports.
Read more about the Camden food co. brand

Railrest: A visionary look at Railrest's marketing philosophy.
September 2008
The Yard Creative helped Railrest establish a long term marketing philosophy, including an approach to introducing new products and services to Thalys (a high speed train operator across Europe).
Read more about the Railrest project

Rail Gourmet: Strategy and design of onboard catering.
July 2008
The challenge was to identify future opportunities within onboard catering. The areas that The Yard Creative investigated were:
- Interiors and graphics
- Customer experiences, and
- Trends.

These are the design services / disciplines that we supply to our transport sector clients:

Interior design - concept creation, visualisation, design development, technical drawings, manufacturer / supplier liaison
Graphic design - POS, navigation and way-finding, art-working
Strategy - identifying business strengths and opportunities, trend research, industry insights
Branding - creation, development and bringing to market new brands
Experience design - researching and considering all possible customer engagement and touch-points, considering ideas, emotions and memories within the design solution
Customer research - identifying customer drivers, goals and frustrations via ethnographic studies, surveys, informal interviews, focus groups, task-driven activities.

The future of onboard retail from the 2009 Railway Interiors Expo in Cologne:

The Yard Creative recently attended the Railway Interiors Expo and presented a short talk on the future of onboard retail with Rail Gourmet. The talk highlighted 4 key points to consider Customer behaviours, Know your offer, How to select which products and High Street logic.
See a summary of the future of onboard presentation (PDF, 1.5M)

The Yard Creative has featured in the following articles within the transport industry press:

Rail Professional magazine, 2009: Future of high speed train interiors (PDF, 381K)
Onboard Hospitality magazine, 2009: Taste not waist (PDF, 1.9M)