Don’t Be A McGymDonald’s

When gym brands embrace interior aesthetics employed by fast food chains one has to ask, why would a gym developer deliver to their market, a fitness business model that resembles the style of a McDonald’s? 

A recent LinkedIn post I came across was setting up a dialogue for the failure of McDonald’s corporate leadership in guiding their franchisees through hostile waters and receding revenues. Á la Gary Vanyerchuk, I jumped in on the conversation and commented that no amount of corporate welfare was going to rescue any McDonald’s franchisee when trial, judge and jury, in the form of public opinion, has found those at the helm guilty of profits at the expense of consumer health and wellness in the form of chemically engineered food- abysmal employee compensation standards – and complicit in animal McCruelty campaigns.

Fortunes’s Phil Wahba recently delivered an articulate and lucid essay on the closing of hundreds of McDonald’s stores in an effort to mitigate declining revenue and profits. So what’s a iconic fast food brand to do? Re-brand of course, in an orchestrated multi channel effort uniting social media, PR, menu changes and interior design (our subject of discourse). Actually, their interior re-branding effort began back in 2008 when franchisees decided to create stylish interiors for the brand which effort was to move them from stogy to stylish, and this, in my opinion, is the classic interior design fail.

I started this post by asking why gym brands embrace aesthetics that are being employed by McDonald’s? To be clear, what I’m arguing is…. why are gyms using the same design trend called Boutique Design that McDonald’s is also using? The answer, these gym developers trusted the concepts and aesthetics presented to them by their design or branding consultants (and or they were sold on them and closed by the same). What brands fail to recognize when revamping interior aesthetics is the agenda, ego, and intent of the retained design firm, I know, I’ve trained some of them.

Designers are a breed of creative elitists intent on spawning their vision at all costs, including and at the detriment of their client’s best interests, investment and brand identity.

Why? Promotion of their ego and procreation of their superior design vision, it’s all about them and their portfolios. Rather than branding you’re gym they’re more concerned with having their concepts built. They’re intent on impressing their industry peers, one-upping and upstaging their competition, by delivering their own interpretation of the current popular design trend. This in my opinion is in conflict with a “professional design code of conduct” and broadcasts design malfeasance.

When interior designers produce designs that reflect a trend or their personal tastes rather than power branding their client’s business model they…

• Blur their clients brands
• Squander their clients investment
• Subvert their clients marketing opportunities
• Undermine their client’s ability to dominate a marketplace

It is paramount in the field of fitness facility design that designers provide their clients with interior aesthetics that support the business model, telegraph the offering and reinforce the brand.

This is critically important because a fitness environment, by the nature of its core ideology, is one that should exhibit energy and excitement in a way that reflects the brand. A gym interior should aspire to motivate and stimulate membership to train. In contrast, the chic aesthetic of Boutique Design, which found it’s origin in the chill and sexy Hospitality-Hotel-Lounge-Restaurant industry is meant to be sedate and sophisticated and continues to pervade the sphere of fitness facility design. There you have it, boutique design espousing designers are trying to impose on you a sexy chill sophisticated gym instead of one that telegraphs fitness.

But who else? Some might argue that interior design is a lofty art form, subjective and sacred, practiced by the overlord’s of design, the keepers of the creative realm. A designer is a consultant, no more, no less. Resist elevating a design firm to the role of sole arbiter of your gym’s interior aesthetics. Your gym design should reflect YOUR vision, not the designer’s. Designers are facilitators of the built environment and their personal vision, tastes and style should bear no affect on their clients spaces. More than that, designers should rather advise their clients to reject design trends and endeavor to develop some organic concept that is unique to the owner’s own vision. Provide your designer with a brief of what you envision your gym to look like, then request that your designer submit to you concepts, products, metaphors, drawings, sketches, photos, ideas and materials that will become manifest in your vision.

TAKEAWAY: If a corporate behemoth in the likes of McDonald’s finds no savior in the adoption of a design trend, gym developers will be well advised to invest in a design concept that is more closely aligned with the spirit of their offering and reflective of their brand.

Learn more at: www.fitnesscenterdesign.com

About: Cuoco Black is a design academic, interior designer, entrepreneur and natural bodybuilder. He’s a former faculty member and holds a BFA with Distinction, and a Professional Design Diploma, from the New York School of Interior Design, ranked 4th in the World for superior interior design curriculum’s by US News and World Report. Cuoco Black is additionally the designer of the Experimental Cocktail Club, Paris France, rated one of the top 20 Bars in the world by foodandwine.com.