New Store PIRCH: Going above and beyond

Leave it to our client, NorthPark Center, to bring a revolutionary new retail concept to Dallas: PIRCH. This new store features top-of-category brands for the kitchen, bath and outdoor living spaces — but in a way you’ve never experienced them before.

“Experience” is the key to what sets this retailer apart. Upon arrival, customers are greeted with a welcoming beverage from Bliss Cafe, setting the stage for what lies ahead. Taking the “try-before-you-buy” concept quite literally, PIRCH has removed the guesswork from the equation as guests try out fully-functional cooktops, sinks and even shower heads in a spectacular, 32,000-square-foot showroom. Customers are not only invited to, but are encouraged to flush, crank, heat, drain and operate the various appliances. And while immersed in this unique collection of curated products and design ideas, visitors are also treated to culinary snacks and demonstrations.

The PIRCH approach — which makes the retail experience more about life and less about a purchase — is turning the appliance, plumbing and outdoor market on its head. Be sure to stop by PIRCH, located on Level Two between Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, and your head will surely be swimming with ideas for updates and ways to make your nest a little more livable.

— Team Banowetz

On press. Check. The new NorthPark brochure

This week, Team Banowetz has been really busy overseeing the printing of the NorthPark Fall 2014 Campaign brochure with an extensive series of press checks. Although this was no easy task, it’s always fun to see our hard work finally materializing into a finished piece, and to smell the freshly-printed sheets as they come off the press.

The thirty-two-page plus cover perfect-bound book was printed at QuadWilliamson, considered to be one of the best web printers in the country. The cover was printed on a twelve-color Heidelberg sheet-fed press on 100# silk cover-weight paper, and the interior was printed on 100# silk text on a Manroland six-color web press. Most projects we handle are sheet-fed jobs, but this was done on a web press due to the large quantity and number of pages.

With web printing, the paper is fed into the press from a large, continuous roll of paper (about the size of a large ottoman, but a lot heavier). Once the paper passes through all of the ink stations, it’s instantly heated to over 220 degrees to dry the ink, and then is immediately cooled and folded before coming off the press into neat stacks. Later, these printed sheets are combined together during the bindery process, where the brochures are assembled, trimmed and bound. 

So what was our role at the press check? We meticulously reviewed the sheets as they came off the press to make sure the color was accurate, the pages were spotless, and everything looked like we planned. Once it was perfect and we gave the “OK”, things really sped up with the web press cranking out an average of 35,000 sheets per hour. Fifteen hours and five press checks later, we were finally done. We think the finished pieces look amazing, and hope you’ll agree. Look for your copy to be delivered with the September issue of FD hitting your doorstep very soon.

– Leon Banowetz & Sarah Terrell

En Vogue and in Vogue: The debut of the NorthPark Fall campaign

Just in case you don’t have your hot-off-the-press copy yet, here is a peek at the September 2014 issue of Vogue, which showcases the new NorthPark Center advertising campaign in a special four-page section. Featuring new face of Maybelline New York, Marloes Horst, and shot among the spectacular artwork at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, our new creative direction merges art and fashion — to play off the NorthPark tag line “The Art of Shopping.” NorthPark has a longstanding commitment to making museum-quality art accessible to all, featuring world-class art continually throughout the shopping center.

The ensembles featured designs from Roberto Cavalli, Versace, Gucci, BVLGARI and other well-known fashion houses. Be on the lookout for more of our campaign looks in the pages of PaperCity, Modern Luxury, FD and other Dallas publications.

— Team Banowetz