Founded in 1989, Arc'teryx is an innovative design and manufacturing Canadian brand that draws inspiration from the coast mountains of its home country. Arc’teryx specializes in technical high performance outdoor apparel and gear for the serious adventurer.

Their latest collection, System_A, is the brand’s vision of casual daily wear for a younger audience. The 2022 Spring Summer collection is called Komorebi, the Japanese word for sunlight filtering through trees.

Arc'teryx launched the Rebird campaign to revive the city of Shanghai after a two-month lockdown. The campaign included a series of offline events that brought together sports lovers to explore Shanghai by running. Arc’teryx engaged us to design an engaging pop-up branded art installation that would bring nature and outdoor adventure to Shanghai. The pop-up store was the final stage of the campaign, highlighting the launch of the latest System_A collection.

During our brand research, we discovered that 63% of Generation Z prefer offline shopping channels over online shopping channels. Consumers want a more personalized customer service and interactive shopping experience.

Based on this, we focused on designing an engaging retail brand experience that would associate Arc’teryx and System_A with nature and outdoor adventures. Inspired by the Komorebi pattern and the brand's spirit of adventure, visitors entering the brand experience enjoyed an immersive journey that would take them into the heart of the forest and away from Shanghai’s urban jungle.

The retail pop-up was divided into two sections: One was a multi-sensory brand experience, taking you into the heart of the forest, and the other was the Arc’teryx retail space.

We have five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. In designing this experience, we focused on the first four (sight, sound, smell and touch) and added another sense - social. By leveraging the five senses (sight, sound, smell, touch and social), we enhanced the multi-sensory experience to make visiting the retail pop-up branded art installation more memorable and engaging.

The exterior design featured thousands of dots to form the mountains of Canada's north coast and the origins of Arc'teryx. Once inside, visitors entered a mini forest surrounded by clouds. We played the sounds of nature throughout the space and a forest scent was diffused though the clouds. In addition to the misty air, we used a rough, plastic flooring to create the sensation of walking on a muddy trail.

On the ceiling, we created patterns of leaves. The giant sun-like sphere hung above the installation, is representative of the different hour of the day. The sunlight allowed visitors to experience the changing light and shadows created inside the installation, creating the “Komorebi” effect.

At the end of the experiential journey, visitors entered the uniquely designed retail space. The brightness of the retail space gave an effect of coming out of a cave, symbolizing the end of the brand experience.

Arc'teryx showcased the pop-up branded art installation across China in three major cities. The first stop of the roadshow took place at the Grand Gateway 66, Shanghai.

The pop-up store was featured by many magazines and news websites such as Frame and China.com, one of China's leading national news websites. Many famous bloggers such as Iris Huang (2.24 million followers), Jrake (670,000 followers) also featured the story on their different social media platforms.

According to Arc’teryx Retail Marketing Manager: “The agency continues to provide retail design solutions that exceed our expectations. The team knows how to connect creativity with technology to solve business problems. The team has been on brand every time and continue to provide retail design solutions that captivate and engage our audience in China.”