Skullcandy flagship immerses customers in sound
Skullcandy, whose headphones, earbuds and speakers have a strong following, has opened a flagship adjacent to its headquarters in Park City, Utah.
The store creates a backstage-pass experience for shoppers and gives the brand an R&D space where it can demo new products and trial different displays for its retail partners pre-launch — gathering feedback directly from customers and passing it onto the sound engineers and retail teams who are based upstairs. It features the company’s full product assortment, limited-edition items and select Skullcandy clothing and accessories. Customers can also bring in their Skullcandy headphones and get them fixed or exchanged for free at the in-house service station.
Designed in collaboration with U.K.-based Checkland Kindleysides, Skullcandy Park City has an urban playground aesthetic, with materials and spatial design cues that lie at the intersection of independent music culture and board sports. The wood used for the product displays is the same wood found in skate ramps. The service desk sits on what resembles three large speakers usually found at a music concert.
An immersive sound bar, ergonomically designed for listeners to feel like a DJ at the decks, lies at the heart of the space. In other design features, suspended product displays combined with an expressive and theatrically-lit campaign canvas as a backdrop, boldly highlight the latest product drops and innovations.
“Our creative vision was to invite people into a backstage experience, bringing to life’s Skullcandy’s ‘music you can feel’ mantra in a multi-dimensional way,” said Joe Evans, creative director, Checkland Kindleysides. “The visceral spatial design reflects the independent and irreverent attitude of the brand and its fans.”
The flagship, which is the brand’s second freestanding store to date (the first is in Tokyo, operates under Skullcandy’s “BORN IN PC” give-back program. In effect since 2015, the program takes a portion of profits from every locally-sold product and invests it back into Park City non-profit programs focused on music, mountain, and board sports education.
The store creates a backstage-pass experience for shoppers and gives the brand an R&D space where it can demo new products and trial different displays for its retail partners pre-launch — gathering feedback directly from customers and passing it onto the sound engineers and retail teams who are based upstairs. It features the company’s full product assortment, limited-edition items and select Skullcandy clothing and accessories. Customers can also bring in their Skullcandy headphones and get them fixed or exchanged for free at the in-house service station.
Designed in collaboration with U.K.-based Checkland Kindleysides, Skullcandy Park City has an urban playground aesthetic, with materials and spatial design cues that lie at the intersection of independent music culture and board sports. The wood used for the product displays is the same wood found in skate ramps. The service desk sits on what resembles three large speakers usually found at a music concert.
An immersive sound bar, ergonomically designed for listeners to feel like a DJ at the decks, lies at the heart of the space. In other design features, suspended product displays combined with an expressive and theatrically-lit campaign canvas as a backdrop, boldly highlight the latest product drops and innovations.
“Our creative vision was to invite people into a backstage experience, bringing to life’s Skullcandy’s ‘music you can feel’ mantra in a multi-dimensional way,” said Joe Evans, creative director, Checkland Kindleysides. “The visceral spatial design reflects the independent and irreverent attitude of the brand and its fans.”
The flagship, which is the brand’s second freestanding store to date (the first is in Tokyo, operates under Skullcandy’s “BORN IN PC” give-back program. In effect since 2015, the program takes a portion of profits from every locally-sold product and invests it back into Park City non-profit programs focused on music, mountain, and board sports education.