◎02/17-02/19

◎02/17
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/149/super-style-me.html
For lunch, Denis Weil chills out in the contemporary lounge he created.
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Weil spritzes a lime over his salad, enjoying the laid-back vibe that lets him focus on the food. "I love this salad, it's so cravable," he coos in a slight European accent. ……**…

……**…His contemporary lounge sits smack in the middle of a newly revamped McDonald's in Oak Brook, Illinois. Yes, McDonald's. Weil, McDonald's VP of concept and design, has spent the past five years educating Carras (VP of U.S. restaurant development) and a host of other executives and franchisees throughout the $23 billion company that a McDonald's restaurant doesn't have to mean primary colors and fiberglass booths.

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……**…"It's a community center," says Weil of the restaurant, meaning McDonald's is one of the few places cheap and casual enough to be accessible to nearly everyone. "There are very few public places left where private things happen." The restaurant in Oak Brook has been divided into four "seating zones," each designed for a different activity -- chilling out, working, casual dining, and group events. ……**…

McDonald's grown-up thinking about design is part of its "Plan to Win" growth strategy, initiated in 2003 when executives realized their core markets had gorged on expansion. From 1974 to 2003, the company supersized from 2,259 storefronts in the United States and just 13 internationally to more than 30,000 in 100-plus countries, each one basically a facsimile of the one before it.

……**…The strategy's three pillars are menu innovation, store renovation, and an upgrade of the ordering experience. ……**…

The next phase, McDonald's execs say, depends on design. "People eat with their eyes first," says president and COO Don Thompson. "If you have a restaurant that is appealing, contemporary, and relevant both from the street and interior, the food tastes better."

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/149/super-style-me.html?page=0%2C1
"As the younger generation starts to see McDonald's as a place you go to eat instead of just picking up food, you could very well change their behavior for years to come," says Darren Tristano of restaurant consultancy Technomic. "The next step," he says, "is to draw people in for a dining experience."
◎02/18
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/149/super-style-me.html?page=0%2C1
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……**…McDonald's is a decentralized beast -- 81% of its restaurants are run by franchisees (McDonald's calls them "owner-operators"), a constituency divided by not only national borders and time zones but also by cultural expectations. Design also has to function within what the company calls the "system"; no changes can interfere with its operational prowess. The question, Weil says, is, "How do you increase service speed and efficiency and optimize the customer experience at the same time?"

The answer will soon pop up in a neighborhood near you. Weil has created what he calls a "living network" where ideas bubble up from McDonald's global partners -- owner-operators, suppliers, outside design firms -- and are relentlessly filtered and tested by Weil and his team. "One of the strengths of my job is to conceptualize what happens in the marketplace and distill the principle out of it," Weil explains. ……**…

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A decade ago, in the midst of French globalization protests and charges of cultural imperialism, Pierre Woreczek, chief brand and strategy officer for McDonald's Europe, realized that the giant clown and prefab furniture had to go if McDonald's was to have a future on the continent. "Everything that was global was seen as not very quality, but efficient and profit-driven," he says. ……**…

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……**…"We are not competing with our direct competitors anymore," Woreczek says. "We are competing with the streets," noting that each region will need to seem more in tune with what is hip to attract customers.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/149/super-style-me.html?page=0%2C2

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"If Martians came down to Earth and visited a McDonald's, a post office, and a bank, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference," Weil says while enjoying a late-morning snack of fries and Chicken McNuggets. (Weil grew up in a kosher household, so he never tasted much of McDonald's wares until recently.) "They would just see that everything starts with a line, has a counter that acts as a divider where the money exchanges, and has something hidden going on way in the back."
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……**…"I've been on a quest to figure out how to merge design and business," he says. [此he是指Weil]

◎02/19
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/149/super-style-me.html?page=0%2C3

……**…"We don't design in a vacuum here. If an idea doesn't come alive in the restaurant, it doesn't work." [Weil says] ……**…

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Weil's scientific design method has led to some subtle but important changes in redesigned stores. ……**…Weil has restored some live entertainment value by positioning McCafé barista stands next to the registers ……**… and has also redesigned menus with larger-than-life photos of the food -- a 21st-century stab at telegraphing quality. 下接 http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/149/super-style-me.html?page=0%2C4

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……**…Weil has added an overhead screen that flashes order numbers for pickup to alleviate a clogged register area. ……**…

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"It's a very contemporary and inviting restaurant," says Paul Hendel, an owner-operator with 19 franchises in New York, of the European model. Last October, he redid his 186-seat restaurant in the Chelsea neighborhood using the French-inspired design. With its open glass-front entry, multicolored chairs, and oasis-like second floor, his joint saw an immediate sales rush. Though he won't share numbers, Hendel says he's serving more customers with a higher check average than ever before. That prompted him to invest in a new "wow" gadget: a handheld order taker that will allow roving waitstaff to funnel orders from the back of the lines into the kitchen.

……**…What happens when the novelty factor wears off? ……**…
Williams, the lead Australian designer, says that by reshuffling, reupholstering, and switching out graphics, his first store design in Melbourne, built in 2000, has lasted a decade. "A lot of the planning principles we use have longevity to them," he says. ……**… "Yes, let's make them relevant," Williams says, "but let's also make them last."
After finishing his lunch in Oak Brook, Weil heads over to a garbage can to demonstrate his latest innovation. Rather than the usual swinging gate in front of the trash bin, this one is open faced with a slimmer, oval-shaped slot. ……**… He leans over and slides his trash off the tray and into the receptacle. ……**… "It always took two hands to operate. ……**… I wanted it to be quick and easy, to leave the customer with a good impression as they leave. ……**…