Checkland Kindleysides

One of the great British retail design agencies, Checkland Kindleysides has a truly impressive portfolio, with ground-breaking retail concepts under its belt that stretch back over two decades.

Checkland’s does interiors, graphics and branding, and is extremely competent with digital, but their real skill is in creating crafted brand storytelling, with luscious attention to quality and detail.

Historically they had a full-scale workshop at their main office, which has given them an instinctive understanding of materials and an appreciation of the artisan approach.

2014 was a great year for Checkland Kindleysides, with a fantastic global flagship for Hunter on London’s best shopping street, two retail flagships for Nixon watches – their first foray into physical retail, as well as a lovely crafted concept for heritage shoemaker Joseph Cheaney, for whom they have subsequently completed an even more beautiful second store on Henrietta Street, which is fast becoming Covent Garden’s menswear street and now an equaly well executed third store at Coal Drops Yard.

More recent projects have included the launch of a major fashion concept for Lindex at Westfield Stratford, demonstrating their skill with mainstream fast fashion, as well as expansions of Nixon to New York.

Their stores for Jigsaw – in Westfield London, Guildford (which includes The Shop at Bluebird) and at Kings Cross demonstrate their ability to create different interior design concepts, whilst retaining a singular brand ethos.

They also designed a wonderful storytelling flagship for traditional Scottish cashmere brand Johnston’s of Elgin on London’s New Bond Street. In a similar vein, Dan Murphy’s wine cellar takes the brand back to its spiritual home, (actually its original home). The heritage-based concept celebrates Dan Murphy as one of the original wine importers and shares their expertise and knowledge of fine wines in a warm and welcoming space where they can sample the vintages on offer.

A highlight of 2017 was their design of Adidas’ stadium inspired flagship in NYC, which was designed in collaboration with Gensler. (featured in our Need to Know section)

Working in collaboration with NY creative agency DML, CK demonstrated their craft skills in realising the curated concept for Hermes petit h pop-up in New York.

Foraying back into denim is their Creative Studio concept for American Eagle, where customers can create their own personalised product, it’s also a social space where customers can hang out with their friends and as home to American Eagle’s social media team, it facilitates a direct dialogue between the brand and their customers.

Over the years the consultancy has produced many outstanding concepts for footwear brands and their concept for Italian footwear brand Hogan is another one to add to the list. The Milan store sits alongside other luxury brands on Via Montenapoleone and features bold, sculptural ‘gallery plinths’ which punctuate the space and represent the idea of a ‘stride in motion’. Creating a concept for the luxury urban customer the store seamlessly blends a palette of industrial greys with luxurious rich blue upholstery, soft flesh tones and matt gold detailing. Beautifully executed.

More recent concepts in the beauty arena include their new beauty hall concept for Debenhams, which places the retailer as a beauty expert and FaceGym’s new store at Coal Drops Yard. Working with Skullcandy they have created a R&D retail space at the brand’s HQ in Utah. It’s a place where customers can try out new product and the brand can harness feedback from customers passing it directly back to the internal teams upstairs. It’s designed to invite visitors into a backstage experience, bringing to life the full Skullcandy experience.

Jeff Kindleysides is the design boss who presides over the business.