Local Color

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Store specialists: Oehl (left) and Kobe had won many prizes for their designs for Apple Stores before taking on the Nokia project.

To Russia with love: Eight Inc. is designing Nokia's stores, such as this one in Moscow, with video screens that can be programmed from HQ.

How do you create flexible concepts that can fit into a local community while still retaining and reinforcing the client's global brand image?

Tim Kobe and Wilhelm Oehl, principals of the San Francisco--based design consultancy Eight Inc.--who previously designed the Apple Stores for Steve Jobs--have come up with a novel solution to this problem in the new shops they've designed for Nokia. Product information is conveyed via video screens, which allows distinct digital content to be formatted for each store from a central point in Espoo, Finland. "They can custom-tailor the material for the local market, whether in terms of language or locally appropriate offerings, while retaining corporate oversight," says Kobe. For example, when Nokia opened the Moscow store, it invited local artists to contribute works that could be broadcast over the screens. The Nokia store, in effect, became a gallery. "We can change the feeling of the space at any time," says Oehl. Adds Kobe: "It's not local versus global. It's a combination of the two."