LDJ ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE LAUCH OF OUR BRAND NEW ONLINE STORE

You’ll be able to find a complete range of indoor and outdoor lights for Christmas, Weddings, Parties, Festivals, or simply to add stylish decoration to your home or garden.

MANCHESTER ARNDALE TELEVISION COMMERCIAL

Manchester Arndale Television commercial featuring Christmas Decorations and Grotto designed exclusively by LDJ.

LAKESIDE EXTERNAL 60ft TREE

22 hours in 2 mins 54 secs - Showing the installation of one of the biggest outdoor Christmas tree’s in Britain.

CALENDAR NEWS - RIDINGS SHOPPING CENTRE, WAKEFIELD

November - 2009 - Copyright © 2009 Independent Television News Limited. All rights reserved.

THE NEXT STELLA McCARTNEY COULD BE DESIGNING YOUR CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

Next year the Christmas Decorations in your centre may be designed by a famous architect, designer or writer of the future.

In a groundbreaking 3 year exclusive sponsorship LDJ Design & Display, the UK’s leading retail decorations company is joining forces with Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, the UK’s foremost art and design college to research, design and develop tomorrow’s retail Christmas experience today.

Central Saint Martins - which includes amongst its alumni such famous names as Stella McCartney, Terence Conran, Peter Blake, Alexander McQueen, Lucian Freud,, John Galliano, Pierce Brosnan, Mike Leigh, Gerald Scarfe A A Gill, Hussein Chalayan, Simon Callow and Matthew Williamson - will be working with LDJ on a range of projects over the next 3 years aimed at improving the whole experience and look of Christmas within shopping centres.

LDJ’s managing director, Caroline Gamester, - herself a trained fashion designer who includes a stint working for Donna Karan in New York on her CV – said “ We always aim to stay one step ahead of our competition in bringing our clients new idea’s and what better way to do this than by working with a group of the brightest young creative minds around. Central Saint Martins also have wonderful contacts with a whole range of cutting edge technology companies and research institutes”

The particular course that LDJ have chosen to work with is the MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments which pioneers collaborative practice among architects, designers, curators, writers and project managers.

But what is a narrative environment? Tricia Austin the course director at Central Saint Martins explains – “ A narrative environment is about unfolding stories into spaces The course is based on the premise that all environments, such as shopping centres, tell stories and that narrative is a fundamental and accessible way for people to make sense of places. Stories are implicit in the materials, structures, text, images, film, signs, sounds, sequences and uses of space.”

Tricia Austin continues – “We’re thrilled at the opportunity LDJ’s sponsorship gives our students to work together with them on real projects for real places.

Our collaboration with LDJ gives us the ideal opportunity to unfold the story of Christmas and its memories of childhood, joy and celebration and the giving of gifts into a shopping centre environment with the aim of increasing the number of visitors to that centre by providing a truly memorable experience”.

The course, which only started 3 years ago, is building an impressive reputation having already worked on commercial projects such as “The Airport of the Future” with Arup, “Arts Space of the Future” with Arts Council England and “The Stairway to Heaven” way finding system installed for the Hayward Gallery as well as winning the Royal Philharmonic Music Education Award for the PLAY.orchestra installation at the Southbank Centre.

To sum things up Caroline Gamester said – “I believe this will only be the start of a long term association between LDJ and Central St Martins which I’m sure will generate a host of exciting, creative and innovative ideas for our clients”.

CHRISTMAS MOVES OUTDOORS AT LIVERPOOL ONE

First published: 01 March, 2010 - Shopping Centre Magazine © JLD Media Ltd 2010. All rights reserved.

CHRISTMAS TRENDS 2010

First published: 25 February, 2010 - Shopping Centre Magazine © JLD Media Ltd 2010. All rights reserved.

The recession has caused endless difficulties for the shopping centre industry, from rising vacancy rates to dwindling footfall. But if there is a glimmer of silver lining, it’s that centres are upping their game. The assumption that shoppers will continuously flood through the doors is fading fast, and managers need to stay more appealing than the competition. Christmas decorations are an ideal draw, so keeping up with current trends is vital.

According to Caroline Gamester, managing director of leading decorations company LDJ Design and Display, the recession has prompted a noticeable shift in attitude. “The same thing happened with the Depression of the 1930s and 40s. People just want to feel fabulous,” she says.

Having worked in the fashion industry as a designer for Donna Karan, Gamester has a keen eye for colour and style. Using shop fronts and catwalks as inspiration, LDJ’s design team is working on a more colourful and vibrant approach going into 2010.
“Things that make people happy have become very important: bright colours, fun shapes. It’s almost a child’s eye view of Christmas,” explains design director Phil Mercer. “Rich materials and metallics, like gold and copper, are other key features.”
The concept of a ‘traditional Christmas’, however, is not a simple one. As Gamester points out: “What is traditional these days? Blue is now becoming a tradition, whereas five years ago you wouldn’t have seen it.” So when designing schemes, LDJ stays away from fixed ideas of what Christmas should or shouldn’t be. Instead, the team uses design concepts from several sources – including films, music and New York fashion trends – as a basis for new ideas.
“It’s more of a barometer. We were predicting trends for 2010 as we were installing 2009 schemes, so the most important thing is flexibility. We have to give centres what they want. Some centres, for example, are very child friendly, so they wouldn’t want the most sophisticated scheme going,” notes Gamester.
“We designed and installed decoration at Victoria Square in Leeds, which is a beautiful building with top end brands like Louis Vuitton. In that case, the architecture became very important. You always have to work with the scheme.”
And the style trends themselves can be flexible. “There’s a strong trend for art deco, which can be taken in many different directions. You can dress it up and make it extravagant, or leave it simple with just the shapes to suggest the style.”
Flexibility is not only important in adapting to the style of a shopping centre, but also to its budget. Managers don’t have a vast amount to put into Christmas schemes, particularly at the moment. But rather than being selective, LDJ has clients ranging from St David’s, Cardiff and The Mall at Cribbs Causeway right through to The Beacon Centre in North Shields.
Gamester sees it as something of a challenge. “It’s about coming up with innovative ways of working around smaller budgets. That’s where being a good designer comes into play. In fashion terms, designing high end tops when you have the best fabrics and patterns to work with is far easier than designing good value men’s shirts for Marks & Spencer.”
Clearly staying flexible to your clients’ needs has to go hand in hand with quality product and innovative design. For every supplier and installer of commercial decorations, health & safety is a top priority. “As well as making sure that each product is safely fixed, it costs our client a lot of money and effort if we have to come back in and repair things once they’ve been put up,” says Gamester.
“Over Christmas, we do 150 schemes in five weeks, so we need to get everything right first time. Basically, if it’s up there, it needs to stay up there.”

The design of each scheme is equally as important. Christmas is a great opportunity for shopping centres to attract people from further afield by installing creative displays that aren’t replicated in dozens of centres. As Andrew Lee, LDJ’s deputy managing director, puts it: “Everyone is getting more advanced, kids especially. So we’ve always got to be thinking: what is the next big thing?”
Heavy investment in graduate training has helped the company stay ahead of the game. LDJ sponsors a course at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, working with the college on a number of projects to help students design and research the next generation of commercial Christmas experiences.
In turn, a fresh approach and different perspective helps the LDJ team stay innovative. Mercer enjoys hearing the students’ ideas, even if the logistics sometimes need tweaking. “It’s great to see something through fresh eyes.” he says.
“We have to give advice on how to make schemes commercially viable, because the students have never worked according to the strict criteria of shopping centre schemes. But their lack of inhibition also lets them be more creative, so we get see really some interesting ideas.”

CHRISTMAS WELCOMES 3D TECHNOLOGY - LDJ PARTNER WITH MELBRY EVENTS

First published: 01 March, 2010 - Shopping Centre Magazine © JLD Media Ltd 2010. All rights reserved.

Melbry Events launched its 3D shows in Westfield London, Liverpool One and Meadowhall, Sheffield. “I wanted to bring the technology to shopping centres rather than just big cinemas,” begins Hurley. “The first step for us was The Wishfairy. Children went in to see Santa with 3D glasses on, and made a wish to the animated 3D fairy.”

An interactive 3D adaptation of ‘The Night Before Christmas’ followed at Meadowhall. “The children had to reach out to try and catch sugar plums and snowflakes all in 3D. I watched their reaction and thought, ‘I’ve really got something here.’ I knew I had to take it further and do something really fantastic with it.”

http://www.melbryevents.co.uk/

As shopping centres fight to distinguish themselves from one another, Christmas activities have grown bigger and better. The traditional Santa’s grotto is being replaced with food markets, ice rinks, and in some cases even castles. But even the most spacious mall couldn’t house an expansive winter wonderland, so centres are switching to outdoor spaces for their festive offerings.

One such centre is the eminent Liverpool One, which no longer has a plain old grotto but Santa’s Ice Palace. “That says it all really,” says marketing director Lisa Tolley, who started on 2009’s Christmas scheme in the middle of last year. “The tendering process began in the summer, and LDJ came up with the idea of a magical ice palace which incorporated Liverpool’s Go Penguins event.”
Go Penguins, commissioned by Liverpool City Council as part of the Year of the Environment, comprised 150 individually designed penguin models scattered across the city. The scheme was designed to raise awareness of global warming, so naturally Tolley wanted Liverpool One to get involved. The Ice Palace was an ideal platform: nine handcrafted penguins found their way inside.
“It worked really well,” comments Tolley. “We wanted to give people something to look at while they were queuing to go inside, so we had penguins looking out through the glass windows. There was also a mail box where children could drop off their letter to Santa, and a conveyer belt to take the mail to the North Pole.”
Inside the grotto itself, a costumed Father Christmas sat on a throne surrounding by hanging icicles, (and a carefully positioned partition allowed the centre to get away with two Santas). Having taken so long to plan and a week to construct, Tolley wanted to make the most of the Ice Palace’s opening day.
“We had the option of hiding it and then doing a big reveal, but we thought why not use sound instead? Rather covering it up during construction, we used speakers to make it sound like elves were working on the palace, getting it ready for Christmas. It got children excited in the build up, and we kept a local feel by having the elves address people walking past. So they’d say things like, ‘Johnny’s been a very good boy this year!’”