The WHSmith store at Gatwick Airport

WHSmith is a chain that offers a wide variety of products, from food and drinks, books and magazines, to quick snacks and gift items. Its branches are located in numerous airports and the recently completed flagship store at Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal features a brand-new format which will be replicated across the chain’s branches.

Wanda Creative has completely redesigned the layout of the space, using luminaires as graphic elements. Customers’ journey through the store is facilitated by a layout designed to ensure that each sector can be easily identified and accessed.

The store is bright, light, and colourful, featuring an abundant presence of digital media. At the inauguration of the Gatwick store, the company’s Business Development Director, Spencer Sheen, said that the same layout will be adopted at terminals T3 and T4 at Heathrow Airport.

The food range is the most important part of the store, having a specific focus on healthy eating. The fridges and shelves displaying the products are evenly illuminated using recessed Laser Blade Wall Washer luminaires.

The same type of installation illuminates the books and magazines section. WHSmith is synonymous with magazines, a category that has suffered a significant drop in sales, in recent years. More elegant than it ever used to be, the wooden shelving on which the magazines are displayed is also illuminated by Laser Blade Wall Washer luminaires.

In the central section of the store, track-mounted Front Light projectors installed between the wooden slats decorating the ceiling provide either general or accent lighting. The store structure also includes a series of display columns topped by a circular structure featuring recessed Pixel Plus luminaires which illuminate the items on display. A distinctive feature of the design is the use of coloured light to indicate areas of particular importance. The centre of the store features a circular structure illuminated using Underscore RGB luminaires set to emit blue light, as well as recessed Pixel Plus luminaires, installed on both the outer and the inner rim of the structure. This new layout, the use of coloured light, and the addition of music, all contribute to making the new WHSmith stores extremely pleasant spaces, worthy of customers’ time while they wait for their flights.