Shell Select: Behind the Design

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The first and only Shell Select convenience store in the United States opened in Louisville, Ky., on Sept. 5. Retail design and consulting firm Bona Design Lab created the design for the store.

• Click here for details on Shell returning to U.S. retail.

"We are excited to offer a new and unique experience for our customers," said Gyongyver Menesi-Bondar, head of convenience retail for Shell Oil Products U.S., Houston. "Shell Select is different from traditional convenience stores in that it provides high-quality, fresh, culinary-inspired food and beverage options for customers who are on the go, and it also provides the ability to get in and out at your own pace without being slowed and without feeling rushed."

Joseph Bona, president of Bona Design Lab, New York, said Shell tasked his team with helping the global oil company demonstrate its commitment to supporting its wholesale network in the United States through a strong, competitive convenience retail format.

"Our mandate was to take the Shell Select global brand and adapt it to the U.S. market while creating a design that communicates the wholesaler's local roots in Louisville," he said. "We're proud to be one of the national and local suppliers that Shell Oil Products US selected to help them with this initiative."

Click here to see some of the details of Bona Design Labs’ work …

Photographs courtesy of Bona Design Lab

The U.S. prototype was created at the site of a former Thornton's fuel and convenience store location that Estepp Energy, a Lexington, Ky.-based Shell wholesaler, acquired.

Although Bona Design Lab retained the original store structure, the building received a complete redesign of the exterior and interior, as well as a new layout. The thrust of the overall design, Bona said, was to create a strong food and beverage presentation that includes local touches and products.

The exterior is modern architecture that incorporates an upscale outdoor seating area covered by an awning and screened in by greenery, with signage that invites customers to "Have a Seat and Chill."

"We wanted to make sure that the architecture, including the outdoor seating, signals to people that this is a destination for food and beverage, with more than just the traditional convenience-store categories," Bona said. "It is intended to disrupt people's usual expectations of what they'll find at a gas station."

Inside the store, layout and design work together to put the focus on the consumable offerings. Customers entering the store immediately find self-serve beverages situated to their left, while facing an array of food products that fill the back wall. Although the store footprint measures 2,221 square feet, an open ceiling and the layout help create a space that feels spacious and is easy to navigate, Bona said.

The interior treatment makes use of the Shell Select palette of colors and materials, but reinterprets them to underscore the central role of food and beverage, Bona said. Natural dark materials and warm wood tones work with LED lighting to create visual interest with highlights and contrasts within an overall warm and inviting ambience.

The interior design is further distinguished by a clean, understated approach to departmental graphics. "We stayed away from the hectic graphic treatments and vivid colors that characterize a lot of older convenience-store designs," he said. "We wanted to keep the food and other merchandise center stage and used lighting and fixtures to achieve that."

A notable exception is a mural created by a local artist on one wall that presents a stylized map of Louisville, highlighting some of the iconic features the city is known for. "This was the one area where we used graphics to create a local feeling," Bona said. "We wanted to make sure that the people of Louisville know this is a retailer with local roots who understands their tastes."