Retail Portfolio

Apparently, now is the time to hang your shingle in northern Georgia. “Everything already existed, so we had nothing to lose but our pride,”
Bill Grant says of his design studio’s new venture. The Store at Grant Collaborative opened last June in downtown Canton, 45 minutes north of Atlanta, after a nonprofit left the ground floor of the three-story building that the studio occupies. That was all the incentive Grant, the national president emeritus of AIGA, and his staff needed to take their work to the street. “The Store is part advertisement,” Grant says. “We can drive business upstairs.”

All of the objects on display—Jaipur rugs, wallpaper from Set Wallcovering Systems, and handmade journals—were created by Grant’s team. The store has value beyond the PR advantage of gaining direct access to the consumer. “It is a laboratory for feedback on the products we create,” Grant says. “It also brings all our disciplines—graphic, product, and interior design—together.”