I was on the bus (to an interview, yay) the other day after work when we stopped in traffic & I was staring into a storefront.
It was a clean and tidy store (even from the bus) but very clearly old.
It just made the shop feel dingy. Almost dirty.
The walls were old, cheap looking wood. The ceilings were low & the lights were harsh fluro bulbs.
I started judging the shop negatively. Then wondered why. I hadn’t been in that shop before but I’ve been on their website & it’s not their stock or price that’s a problem. They’re equal to their competitors.
I’m hardly a designer person myself, so who am I to judge what a shop looks like?
I think it was because it felt like old memories of dingy little lecturer rooms. At uni, we did a comparitive class project where we looked at degrees, corproate sponsors and univeristy investment in facilities. In the end, it came down to the fact that our small cohort of Anthropology students had the oldest and least cared for buildings!
Is dingy a reflection of the place? Or a memory recalled? Or something else entirely?
