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Pucker up for another Snog

Snog’s second frozen yoghurt outlet in the UK again showcases striking lighting. Designer Dominic Harris tells Richard Simmonds how lighting schemes will differentiate the stores

One of the runners up in this year’s Lighting Design Awards was the Snog frozen yoghurt store in South Kensington. The store – which is dominated by a backlit Barrisol ceiling that creates a ‘digital sky’ – is only the first of many planned for the UK.

All the stores will feature the same brand identity, and the same architect and lighting designer: Dominic Harris of Cinimod Studio.

Culture shock A public unaccustomed to good retail lighting has been moved to blogging and twittering about the Snog frozen yoghurt stores

“The founding directors appointed ICO Design to do all the branding and graphics,” says Harris. “That was before they had any concept for the store, and ICO Design put me forward to be the lighting designer for the project. Just in talking to the client about my approach – which is to integrate the lighting and the architecture – they agreed that it would make sense for me to do both the architecture and the lighting.”

The common elements of the stores establish a strong brand identity in the architecture. There is a pink wall, painted in a shade prepared specially for the chain, the white glass for fixtures and fittings, and the vinyl floor with an image of grass.

“Those things are set,” says Harris, “the thing that will change the most between the stores will be the lighting installations.”

Soho effervescence
Snog’s second store is in the Soho district of London. Like the South Kensington Snog, it has a striking ceiling, this time comprising more than 700 illuminated glass globes. “I really felt that we should exploit the ceiling heights we had and create something volumetric and bubbling,” says Harris. “People describe the ceiling as ‘effervescent’ – which I really like.”

Going online Snog Soho's ceiling has been featured online on blogs and twitters – and this video

The globes, which are 80mm in diameter, are arranged in a regular grid at intervals of 150mm and hang at different heights. “They’re made of glass with a white opal fusing on the inside and a etched frosting on the outside,” says Harris. “By having those two layers of diffusion in the glass, you get a very even result.”

Each globe is equipped with six Nichia RGB LEDs inside and is rated at about 2.5W.

	Night and day The colour of the entire lighting scheme changes with the time and season, creating ‘a perpetual summer’

The ceiling was installed by E-Luminate, a company that specialises in digital lighting installations. Installation was simplified by thoughtful design early in the project.

“Normal LED fittings have the LED drivers in the fitting, but to bring the cost down and speed up the installation, each globe contains only the LEDs,” says Harris. “All the drivers are at the other end of the two-metre long cable. It’s all hot-swappable, so if there’s ever a problem with a globe, we can unclip it from the ceiling. There’s a break in the cable with USB-style connectors.”

Practical light
Cinimod Studio supplemented the LED globes with Club C fittings from Delta Light. “I’m still not entirely convinced about using white LED functional lighting,” says Harris. “The Club C fittings provide practical light and felt right with the layout of the globes – right down to the fact that the spacing of the multi-head fittings was the same as the globe ceiling.” There are three four-head units and two two-head units.

The extra fittings ensure even illumination of the bespoke ‘grass’ print vinyl floor tiles, supplied by flooring specialist Harvey Maria.

Harris says: “They provide an even wash of light on the floor, but as you move through the space, you are aware that you are moving through light and shadow.”

More Delta Light fittings are fitted above the counter area. “Deep recessed halogen fittings are running all the way along there. They’re particularly focused above the display fridge, picking up the fruit. I wanted the display counter to be as pure and minimal as possible, and I didn’t want a lighting channel built into it. I wanted good colour rendering too.”

First kiss The South Kensington Snog, with its ‘digital sky’, was shortlisted for a Lighting Design Award this year

The bright pink wall – painted in a shade prepared for Snog and including a fluorescent pigment – is illuminated by a continuous line of fluorescent lamps concealed along the back of white bulkhead over the main display counter.

LEDs, dimples and virtual reflections Two more Snog frozen yoghurt outlets are about to open. The first is a 750-square-foot kiosk at the Westfield Shopping Centre. Harris describes it as “a giant, organic blobby form with LED node dimples all over it”. The second is at Covent Garden, and it will be the biggest store so far. “At Covent Garden we’re integrating lighting into the seating as well as the ceiling,” says Harris. “You end up with high level and low level planes lit with LEDs. Covent Garden will have disc of sky, almost like a virtual skylight. The seating below will have LEDs in it that will pick up the movement of the sky above, creating a fake reflection.” All the Snog stores to date are templates for the next big expansion. “Because Snog is a new company, we’re trying to choose locations where we have different things to contend with,” says Harris. “There’ll be things we find that work pretty well and there will be things that are less successful – but now’s the time to learn from what we’re doing. “When we move onto the next stage, which is doing five stores at a time, the game will change quite a bit.”

Addressing the controls
All the elements of the lighting scheme are connected to a single control system. “The kit that we’ve installed is all auto-addressing,” says Harris. “What was important was to have a system that was easy to commission. Each globe goes into a controller box – each of which controls 32 of the globes. Then there’s a DMX data connection between the boxes. That’s all wired back to a DMX control system from EQ.”

At present the system is completely automated, responding to time of day and time of year. The scheme is bright during the day – in blues and whites – but more intimate in the evening.

“One of the things we’re learning from the South Kensington shop is how important it is to vary the colour based on the weather outside,” says Harris. “So if it’s a cold day, we tend to simulate a fiery hot sunset inside. Likewise, if it’s a very hot day, we’ll go for very cool colours inside. It’s the idea that you’re creating a perpetual summer.”

Harris declares that he is particularly pleased with the exterior signage for the Snog outlets. “We’ve got vertical pink slats of acrylic, with elliptical angle LEDs between the slats. They project light down between the slats.

Controlled outdoor lighting
“When we were talking to Westminster City Council, one of the things they were really keen on was to see people moving towards more controlled use of outdoor lighting. They liked out scheme because we were using directional low power sources.”

Snog’s push into the UK continues apace. Two more shops will open in the next few months (see box).

For Harris, the pleasure of each new outlet is the way in which the public responds to good lighting. “What we’re finding is that there isn’t much of a benchmark for good lighting in high street fast food retail. People never stop and look at a ceiling, but here they take photographs of it. People blog about it, pictures end up on Flickr and videos are on YouTube.”

And Snog’s ongoing commitment to quality lighting is clear: “It’s part of the ongoing brief that lighting is absolutely essential to the design.”

This is a Lighting interactive project. Click on the numbers to see the details of the lighting installation.

Project details Project Snog, Soho, London Architecture and lighting design Cinimod Studio Branding and graphics ICO Design Main contractor Vivid Interiors Digital lighting installation E-Luminate Architectural lighting Delta Light Signage and light boxes The Lettering Centre Photos Cinimod Studio

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