The Asian Paints Colour Store, a home decorating showroom and flagship store in India, was honored as Store of the Year by the Retail Design Institute (RDI) in its 38th annual competition. The award was presented by RDI (formerly the Institute of Store Planning) at its annual awards banquet in New York earlier this week.
The store, which sells no product, was inspired by “holi,” the Indian color festival and was meant to create an environment that is “a walk in a home décor magazine.” It was designed by Fitch Worldwide.
This year’s judging was held in November 2008 at Macy’s Inc. headquarters in Cincinnati and hosted by RDI’s Ohio chapter, led by Brian Shafley of Chute Gerdeman (Columbus, Ohio). A full description of the winning project and a review of all the category winners will appear in the March issue of VMSD and on this web site.
Also at the awards banquet, on Jan. 12, 2009, at the TimesCenter Stage, Ken Nisch, chairman of JGA Inc. (Southfield, Mich.), was inducted into the RDI Legion of Honor, now in its eighth year. Nisch is the 31st inductee since the organization began the practice in 2001. And Andrew McQuilkin of FRCH Design Worldwide (Cincinnati), currently RDI’s international president, was named RDI 2008 Member of the Year.