Collection by Miyoko Ohtake
Hero Design Studio
For many setting out to make it on their own, a storefront is a destination. But for husband-wife team Mark Brickey and Beth Manos Brickey of Hero Design Studio, their shop in Buffalo's Allentown neighborhood has been a way to introduce future clients to their brand and a stop along their path toward full-time design.
Mark and Beth followed Apple's model: inviting people into a physical space to experience the brand. "On a very micro level, that process worked for us," Mark says. The name was also inspired by Apple. "I'm not an institutional kind of guy," say Mark, who dropped out of design school when he shopped his portfolio around town and landed a logo and t-shirt gig for a local record store. "It'd be nice to have something hanging on the wall but all my heroes are dropouts, took life by the seat of their pants, and made things happen. That's been a motivation, all those wacky people who had more vision than common sense."
The real reason for having the space is the printing studio that occupies the back third of the 650-square-foot store. "We needed somewhere to house everything," Beth says. "We could either have gotten a studio and relied on online sales or gotten a studio in which we also did retail. We figured if the store didn't do well we could close off the front and keep the space for our workshop."
Though they're located in a Rust Belt city with ample available space, Mark and Beth treat their shop and studio like a Brooklyn space. "What we do is urban and hopefully seen as hip and big-city-ish so we do it in that environment," Mark says of squeezing into the tight quarters. Shown here are the piles of long-term inventory as well as paints, both of the traditional silk-screening as well as house varieties. "We do a lot of playing around," Mark says.
On March 1, Mark and Beth announced that they'll be shuttering their Allentown storefront—not because of a lack of business but because of the exact opposite, they're too busy with design projects to dedicate the time to maintaining a retail shop. Not to fret, however, they'll be using their extra time to attend more shows (like Flatstock and the Renegade Craft Fair) and expand their online shop at heroandsound.com/sto... as well as on Etsy.