Have you ever wanted to see the front of every single Apple Store together in one gallery? No, me neither, in fact I would go as far as to say it was something that I had never, ever thought about. Not even once.
But it turns out it was something that Thomas Park thought about all the time. Ever since 2001 in fact, when he drove down to Virginia from Philadelphia with some buddies for a Radiohead concert (nerd). Unfortunately for him he didn’t get to see Radiohead (poor baby) because it rained really hard and the venue flooded (what!?) but he DID get to see the very first brick and mortar Apple Store in Tyson’s Corner. Wow. I bet seeing the Apple Store was definitely worth the trip. On his blog he describes this as ‘a concession prize.’ I wouldn’t have used the word prize there. Maybe not even the word concession.
Anyway, fast forward to 2011 and Apple is the most successful store in terms of sales per square foot. Wow. What a stat. I bet even Thomas Park couldn’t have predicted that back in 2001. Upon learning this amazing statistic Thomas Park thought back to his trip to Tyson’s Corner and the first time he laid eyes on an Apple Store and suddenly decided he was interested in discovering just HOW the Apple Store design had developed over the years. He was downright shocked that there wasn’t a tool that allowed him to do this, so he only went and made one himself.
Yes, a gallery of all the Apple Store fronts ever now exists. I guess it’s pretty cool. But there are so many. And they all pretty much look exactly the same. And they’re all full of people who try too hard to help you. Apparently the ‘flagship’ stores look a bit more impressive but I didn’t know because I got bored looking through them all. There are just so many Apple Stores and they’re all exactly the same. One step closer to the standardisation of everything.
But yeah, at least I now know that a gallery of Apple Store fronts now exists. Thanks for that Thomas Park, you rule. RIP Steve Jobs.
Check out Thomas Park’s gallery of Apple Store fronts HERE.
