Royal Enfield

By - 22 October 2015

Lotus was approached by Royal Enfield to create a new retail identity for their iconic brand. Royal Enfield is an international motorcycle brand of British origin, now based out of India (part of the Eicher group), with presence in more than 45 countries.

With increasing global competition, Royal Enfield is looking at creating more meaningful and impactful touch points with their rapidly expanding customer base by diversifying and expanding their retail footprint.

LOTUS was brought on board to create a unified retail identity and experience for Royal Enfield in line with their new brand positioning based on the idea of ‘Pure Motorcycling’; to create an engaging, immersive environment which will familiarize the customer with the rich legacy of the brand while providing a world class retail experience.

Taking off from the idea of ‘pure motorcycling’ we envisaged a space where a motorcycling enthusiast would live, work and play- the idea of living in the garage. The space was based around a character and how this person would experience the space, what kind of furniture would he have in his house, would he put up art? If yes- what kind? Asking these questions and answering them helped us arrive at a lot of ideas for the experience.

The Design Language

Since the premise of the concept was ‘living in the garage’ the shell has been kept grey, monochromatic and rough(textured). The idea was to create different living pockets in the space- a dining space with a community table, a comfortable living room and other seating pockets to encourage customer interaction. The wood, metal and canvas furniture brings in warmth and comfort in the space.
Tall display ladders are used in the store as partitions dividing the store in to four zones for the four categories of motorcycles in the store.
The café racer zone talks bout the sense of community, the thunderbird zone tells the story of the traveller, the classic zones depicts the vintage legacy and the bullet zone celebrates the brand’s most loved bike.

The rich legacy of the brand comes through elements such as the vintage paneling with gold moldings on the trial room walls, the gold band (which is derived from the new brand identity for Royal Enfield) running through the store and small details like the embossed brass pegs in the change rooms.

The art/ installations in the store are made using bike parts- with a bike longitudinally sliced across and assembled, a wall made with half cut tanks of bikes and a headlight chandelier over the community table.

The experience seamlessly integrates the Motorcycle displays, accessory displays, and customer interaction spaces along with art/installations telling the brand story.

As an extension to its expanding program Royal Enfield launched its new range of exciting Biking Gear and Accessories. The gear reflects the key attributes of the motorcycles – simplicity and a strong character that emerges from an honest, no frills crafted attitude in their construction giving it a timeless appeal. Studio Lotus has been working on extending the new Retail identity to these stores.

The first RE Gear store for Royal Enfield at the Elante mall, Chandigarh use a large central elevated metal platform as the key element that holds up a bike as a show stopper with a large table top display of merchandise/ accessories. Backdrop walls tell the story of the brand with artworks such as the exploded bike section and headlight chandelier interspersed with retail display.

STUDIO LOTUS

Lotus is a multidisciplinary design practice whose work seamlessly weaves Interior and Exterior spaces, from large Architectural ideas to the smallest of Furniture details.

Lotus works on the principles of Conscious design – an approach that celebrates local resources, cultural influences and a keen sensitivity to the impact on all stakeholders. The firm prides itself on its collaborative work environment, which brings the best out from within the team of 44 talented and highly committed individuals from multiple disciplines, working together in the domain of Interior Design & Spatial Narrative.

The firm has won numerous awards Nationally and Globally and its projects have been published in various publications in India & abroad. Some of its accomplishments include World Holiday Building
2011 at WAF Barcelona, DFA Grand Jury Award (Hong Kong) 2012, IIID Design Practice of the year in
2009 & 2011, Awards in Hospitality Design, silver at the Asia Pacific Interior Design Awards, amongst several others.