A new lease of life for Westlands family farm shop
For a number of months I’ve been working on a big and very exciting project, and one I am delighted to finally be able to share with you.
I have had the enormous pleasure of working on the rebrand and redesign of Westlands Farm Shop, in Pricketts Hill near Wickham. The project included a complete refit of the existing shop, new product lines and a big focus on sustainability, reducing packaging and creating dedicated areas for refilling cleaning products, milk, pasta and grains.
Westlands Farm is run by Graham and Kayleigh Collett, a family of second-generation farmers, and produces seasonal fruit as well as rearing cows and sheep. Their farm produce is sold in the shop along with a range of other local products, and they had seen such demand for new items during lockdown 1.0 they decided to invest in a large-scale redevelopment of the shop.
This project has been something of a dream come true for me. Much of my design career has been spent working in retail sector, including 26 years at John Lewis. I have worked with big brand names translating their ideas into visual displays, and with large teams overseeing shop fitting. It’s been wonderful to be able to go back to my roots and work with a business this way again.
The very basics of interior design are the same whether you are working on someone’s home or their business; you need to start by examining what people will use the space for. Whether it’s a cosy living room, a family kitchen or a farm shop, you need to understand what people need when they walk in to be able to create something that will work well and meet a person’s needs.
From there the processes change somewhat, and a business space can become more complex to design. Even before someone has visited the premises you need to ensure that your messages and brand are well received; from communication customers might see on email or social media, to the signage in and around the shop and even parking. All of this will contribute to the great customer experience you want to deliver.
Once inside, customers need to see your products clearly, be able to move around the shop with ease, get a clear understanding of your brand and values from what they see, feel and hear while they are shopping. Every tiny element contributes to their visit.
You also have to consider business requirements, such as increasing footfall, placement of your best sellers or promotional lines and staff interaction with visitor, all aimed at encouraging customers to spend more time in your premises, to visit again and recommend you to others. This is achieved through that great customer experience I mentioned, and that’s exactly what I help to create.
We started the project with Westlands by discussing what the brand means to them, and what they want their staff and customers to feel and recognise as their values. It is a business that stands for family, heritage and quality, placing importance on supporting their local community and the environment too.
We collected images that fit alongside these values and quickly established a strong connection with nature and family, showing just how much the Westlands team applied care to every element of their business. Caring for each other, their livestock, their products and their customers. All of this came together in a mood board that included shades of green, blackberry and plum, and drove our ideas for the design of the shop and the new product lines to be brought in, creating a space where people could get all their daily groceries along with gifts and high end purchases in one place.
In a new direction for the business, the refill stations have created a strong focus on sustainability as well as some eye-catching displays. The milk refill machine is a relatively new idea in any shop and Westlands are one of the first outlets in the country to allow shoppers to decant their own milk. The milk comes from the neighbouring farm meonvalley milk
Part of this project included working with some wonderful colleagues, too. I enlisted the help of Alison Evans, a fabulous friend and ex John Lewis Operations and Design Team Manager, to support the design development, along with the very talented Tam Goldsmith, The Brand Designer, to create a beautiful new brand board and logo for the Westlands Farm Shop. Having creative oversight with such a strong team supporting me was a fantastic collaboration, and together we have been able to really bring the ideas behind the farm shop redesign to life.
The farm shop had an official opening ceremony last month and has had some wonderful feedback from customers old and new, including a visit from Flick Drummond MP. It’s been a joy to be able to influence every stage of the shop development and see everyone so happy with the finished product. I’d absolutely recommend a visit!
It’s been an incredibly busy but very enjoyable few months working on the Westlands Farm Shop, and has ignited in me a passion for retail design that I have not felt in a while. I still love creating new designs for people’s homes but this project has inspired me to develop a new retail and brand design service with Tam Goldsmith, where we can support more businesses to create the perfect retail space.
Becci Oldman and Tam Goldsmith
If you like the sound of a business redesign, drop me a line! I’d love to hear about your ideas, and you can keep your eyes peeled for an exciting new retail service package launching in the near future…