One word, lit from within, on a warm cream panel. Then nothing else.
That was the entire graphic treatment for the booth we built for Hublot's Chicago grand opening through our brand activation program, and it was our recommendation rather than a constraint we were handed. Restraint is the harder brief and it was the right one.
Fulton Market, and the brick
Hublot opened at 1133 West Fulton Market, in a historic building in the Fulton Market District. It is a compact boutique, around 844 square feet, and their sixteenth in the United States.
The thing that mattered most to us about that space is that Hublot built their design around the building's original Chicago brick. They did not cover it. They made it to the room.
So we had a brief that was effectively set before anyone asked us anything: whatever we put in there had to belong against exposed nineteenth century brick without arguing with it. That single fact drove every material decision below, and you can see it in the photos. The booth is not sitting in front of that wall. It is sitting with it.
What we built
The booth is our Classic booth, specified as quietly as we know how.
Dark walnut panels, warm and heavily grained, because walnut and old brick belong to the same family of colours. The inner frame is a soft taupe that picks up the mortar rather than the brick, which is the sort of decision nobody consciously notices and everybody feels. Brushed silver outer frame to keep it from going too warm.
The curtain is black velvet, full length, hung on brass rings. Brass again on the adjustable leveling feet. For a watchmaker, brass is not a decorative choice. It is the material their movements are made from, and using it on the fittings rather than the surfaces felt like the correct register: present, unstated, structural.
The marquee is the only graphic on the machine. HUBLOT set vertically, backlit warm rather than cool so it reads as lamplight instead of signage, and underneath it in small caps the only instruction anybody needs: 3 POSES, 2 PRINTS.
Two small marks are the only other things on the exterior. Our MP monogram in gold on the upper walnut panel, discreet enough that you have to be looking. And the floor plate inside, which reads MAJESTIC underfoot as you sit down. We think a maker's mark belongs where you find it rather than where you cannot avoid it.
Why we argued for restraint
We build both ends of this. It is worth explaining why they are different.
For Birkenstock in Boulder earlier this year we did the opposite of this booth. Every surface was a dense collage of product photography, dozens of images printed with white borders, mountains and dirt bikes and sandals on rocks. It was loud and it was correct, because Birkenstock's proposition is that the product goes everywhere and belongs in real life. A wall of sandals in real places sells sandals.
Hublot's proposition is not abundance. It is precision, scarcity and craft. You cannot argue for that visually by covering a cabinet in watches. The moment you print a hundred images of a luxury object on something, you have made the object look common, and you have also made the booth look like an advertisement standing in a boutique.
So the argument we made was this: at the top of the market, the flex is what you leave out. One word. One instruction. Real materials, properly finished, and enough confidence not to explain yourself. That is how the watches themselves are presented and it is how the room was designed, so it is how the booth should be built.
The practical proof is in the photos. In every shot the booth reads as fitted joinery rather than as an event rental that arrived in a van. Guests treated it as part of the boutique, which is the whole outcome you are paying for at a grand opening. If you want this level of intentionality from a team, reach out to us.
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A booth that worked through the glass
The booth sat inside, positioned so it was visible from the street through the storefront, and walk-ups were welcome.
That placement is doing two jobs and both matter. In an 844 square foot boutique, giving a full enclosed booth its own floor space is a real commitment, so it needs to earn more than one thing. Facing the glass, the lit marquee becomes a window display after dark that happens to also be a working machine. One of the photos here is shot from outside looking in, and that glow through the window is the entire argument for putting it where we put it.
B&W or Color
The screen asks one question before the flash: black and white, or colour.
Black and white is the classic booth register and it is what makes a strip feel like an object rather than a printout. Colour matters at an event like this for a specific reason, though, which is that a watch is a piece of material. Steel, ceramic, King Gold, rubber, sapphire. Monochrome flattens all of that into grey, and a guest wearing a piece they have just been shown deserves a photo where you can actually see it.
Asking the guest is also worth something on its own. A decision, however small, turns a machine into a participant. It takes about a second, which is all the attention you have before the light goes off.
Where this sits in our work
Hublot joins a run of luxury and flagship work: Gucci for their centenary in New York, H&M Beverly Hills for a grand opening, Versace at Bloomingdale's, and YSL Beauty during New York Fashion Week.
It is also our second install in Fulton Market's wider city. Our booth at Stolen Saddle in Wrigleyville is a permanent fixture through our venue placement program in a country bar, about as far from a watch boutique as Chicago gets, and the same cabinet underpins both. Only the specification changed. We work across Chicago for both rentals and long term installations.
Opening a store, or launching something?
We design and build custom photo booths for brand activation work, retail openings and permanent venue installations. Every booth is designed to the room it is going into, which sometimes means covering it in your photography and sometimes means one word and a good piece of walnut.
If you are opening a space and want guests to have a reason to come through the door and something in their hand when they leave, tell us about the room. We also handle straightforward photo booth rental for single events.
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