Any time retailers build a big-box store, good, clear, large-format graphics are an important part of the design. But when Centro Cuesta Nacional (CCN, Santo Domingo, D.R.), one of the Dominican Republic’s leading retail organizations, developed its Jumbo hypermarket concept in the heart of downtown Santo Domingo, good, clear graphics were especially important.

Bright, colorful lifestyle graphics are a staple of nearly every Latin American store design. And in a 166,000-square-foot hypermarket like this one – where home electronics sits adjacent to fashion apparel, which sits adjacent to fresh foods – it’s especially critical that shoppers not used to such huge, diversified retail spaces get help in finding their way around.

For that all-important graphics package, the retailer turned to GFX Intl. (Grayslake, Ill.). After the design book was created by Manuel Hormigo, CCN’s Madrid-based architect, it was passed on to GFX. “It’s not just wayfinding,” says GFX ceo Chuck Huttinger. “The graphics were an integral part of the designer’s vision for the store.”

But the complexity of the job went beyond its heightened role in the overall design: The design book included more than 500 different pieces of lifestyle graphics in the store, of various sizes and on various substrates. “It’s not like producing a graphics package for a 500-store project, where we get the design and the formula and then just roll out the printing,” explains Huttinger.

The design book called for 11 portico structures, roughly 16 feet high, that represent the entryway to various merchandise departments. Each one contains a massive light box with large-format graphics on two sides. There are also hundreds of smaller light boxes and shadow boxes throughout the store to identify products and departments.

Fifty-foot fabric and acrylic lighting structures spotlight the cosmetics department, coordinating with column wraps in the vicinity. Overhead Styrene bandeau graphics, made up of over 130 panels (96 by 36 in.), encircle the store.

Large, vibrant graphics fill the perimeter walls, wrap around light fixtures and columns, curve over department counters and cashwraps, highlight endcaps and create archways over various aisles.
“Our challenge is always to try to value-engineer a job,” says Huttinger, “finding commonalities that make sense – and save the client money. Of course, we’re also careful to carry out the designer’s vision.”

For example, the designer specified a number of light-box graphics in slightly different dimensions. GFX suggested that if they could reduce the number of different sizes in various parts of the store, it would save the project a considerable amount of money. Not only would it reduce the number of different print runs, but adhering to certain standard material sheet sizes cuts the number of times you have to trim a sheet and reduces, as well, the amount of wasted material.

“We told them, we’ll make them at the specified dimensions and it will cost you ‘x,’ ” Huttinger says, “or we can reduce the number of different dimensions and save you 30 percent.”

Similarly, the designers had specified the graphics on a variety of materials, including Sintra, Styrene and board stock. By narrowing the material choices for all the graphics, GFX added further efficiencies and cost-savings. The same with a consistent set of colors throughout the store.

The GFX team, headed by graphics director Hector Padilla, had to make more than six trips to Santo Domingo to discuss the design intent of the store. “Understanding the visual content before bringing it to a reality was key,” says Padilla. “Image is a universal language, and we were careful to ensure nothing was lost in translation.”