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We've come to expect our retailing environments to look good, to be attractive to shoppers and to enhance the merchandise. There's nothing like a bright, new flashy fascia to catch the eye. Hut what lies behind the gleaming chrome and the glittering glass? The popular image of store design is often conceived of as something tacked on at the end — a quick job which a skilful team can carry out with speed. For Michael Peters, who until recently have concentrated on package design, to achieve the effortless‐looking end product a lot of hard graft has gone on before. Sue Sharpies reports on their philosophy and how they've carried this into practice.

From 13 up to 30 in 1984 is the hoped for expansion rate of Grand Metropolitan's fast food restaurants, Huckleberry's. They see themselves becoming a national chain to vie with the likes of McDonald's and Wimpy. Giving them a new image to present an alternative to the ubiquitous red and yellow fast food uniform is Michael Peters Partnership. They have designed a subtle and sophisticated restaurant to suit the “second generation” of fast food customers. Sue Sharpies describes Huckleberry's new found confidence and takes a look at the Putney pilot.

In east London at any rate the synonym for superstore must be Asda. Two have recently opened within a few miles of each other in London's Docklands. The store at Beckton is doing a record trade and looks set fair for the future. Sue Sharpies look at the District Centre and Asda's place as a core element in its continued success.

Up till recently out of town retail warehouses have not been noted for their good looks, but this may change if the lead taken by a new electrical retailing venture is followed. ‘Ultimate’, the result of a tie up between Harris Queensway and Debenhams, is one of the first ‘sheds’ to be awarded the distinction of being designed, in the hope that its improved appearance and attention to merchandising will do for this store what they have undoubtedly achieved for the high street shops. Sue Sharpies looks at this new operation and examines the reasons behind its formation.

Until recently Woolworths have gained the reputation of being a bit coy about their plans. Now things have dramatically changed. About 130 of their stores are now rigged out in the new design, with improved, better quality merchandise on sale, and the rest of the 818 outlets will be at least laid out along the new lines by July 1987. This extensive store programme is being speeded along by the company's new chief executive, Malcolm Parkinson. He's been in post for just over six months and is very keen on banging the drum for one of the biggest retailers in the UK. Sue Sharpies went to hear about his plans for the high street group.

Migros City in the centre of Zurich in Switzerland is a far cry from the company's traditional superstore layout, and this dramatic departure seems to be successfully meeting the city shoppers' needs. Sue Sharpies visited the centre and found out how a huge retailing empire can with enough vision, imagination and attention to detail radically reformulate its merchandising policy to suit the situation.

Three well‐known London department stores — Whiteleys, Swan & Edgar, Bournes — have all closed down in the last few months. Does this indicate the beginning of the collapse of the department store as such or is it simply the result of special circumstances, occurring more or less concurrently? Location is clearly a factor that needs to be taken into account. Whiteleys has struggled on valiantly in the past few years in an environment that has become increasingly indifferent to it. Even white elephants can briefly survive, but not when the circus leaves town. When department stores were in their triumphant heyday, they offered opulence, glamour and excitement. Gordon Selfridge persuaded Bleriot to lend the store his biplane soon after that intrepid aviator had flown across the Channel in 1909; and in the 30s several department stores flashed the latest news in moving lights across their fascias as Hitler moved implacably across Europe and the British concentrated on whether or not they would win the ashes. Has the department store's traditional glamour become irretrievably lost beneath grey layers of dowdiness? And what of the competition? With everybody diversifying into non‐food, what after all is the essential difference between a Tesco or an Asda superstore and a traditional department store? Except perhaps that the Tesco or the Asda may be much more fun to shop in? Perhaps the answer lies in how the department store intelligently uses its space; the shops‐within‐shops solution, for example. But while Debenhams continues to perform well with this as an essential strand of its operational policy, some commentators say that this was one of the reasons for the collapse of Bournes. Is specialisation the answer? The John Lewis Partnership has built up a unique and enviable reputation for fabrics — surely this specialisation must be a major factor in the group's profitability. Neither can the department store be seen in isolation from the community; the Law Lords' astonishing failure to realise that no public transport system in the civilised world can run without a subsidy means that London's public transport fares have now reached the kind of lunatic level that prohibits people from moving out of their suburban retreats without a special kind of masochism. Does this mean that suburban department stores will now blossom again around deserts of dead down‐towns? These are some of the questions that Sue Sharpies looks into in this special RDM feature.

There was a long pause after the Habitat/Mothercare merger and the retailing world spent much time speculating on its outcome. Now the new look Mothercare has been revealed and demonstrates that a lot of thought has been generated in the last 18 months. RDM looks at Conran's new bouncing baby.

1983 heralds the third year of W H Smith's bar‐code wanding trial at Commercial Road, Portsmouth. RDM spoke to overall controller of the project, John Read, at the company's Swindon centre, and visited the pilot store to find out how the new system was progressing.

Fitch & Co, who have been in the design field for over 20 years, have recently gone public, and a glance at the figures for the first day's trading must have left RodneyFitch very well pleased. The company's attitude towards their work is vigorous and assertive and has resulted in this highly successful venture into the stock‐marketplace. One of their latest schemes has been for the off‐licence chain, Gough Brothers.