Pictures from the Miracle on 26th Street Party just surfaced!:

The Tanek building was full of holiday cheer (booze+laughing) last night!

Spyder Trap created a come-hither look for their floor with a crackling fire (in the fireplace) and a 12′ Christmas tree on the landing. Touchpoint displayed its usual finger-on-the-pulse-of-everything-chops with food from Eat Street, valet parking, and blown-up, black-and-white stills of the classic Christmas film: Miracle on 34th Street.

What a perfect holiday party!

Drew Wood delves into the origin of Touchpoint Retail. I love that he used the term brainchild. I’d like to have a brainchild someday.

The Science Unseen

… Based in Minneapolis, Touchpoint is the brainchild of two architects and a branding guy—Nat Shea and Ken Piper, principals and founders of Minneapolis-based architecture and design firm Tanek, and Josh Hanson, formerly with Best Buy among other retail giants—who saw a major hole in the retail marketplace.  “Repeatedly over our careers as architects we’ve run into instances where we’re working with a client, and we’re solving the architectural puzzle, and it’s a beautiful space; and then their marketing group shows up and they start putting stuff up, and then our store environment might not even look like what their campaign is, or what their vision is because they’re approaching it from two separate entities,” says Shea of the disconnect he perceived from his perch atop Tanek.  Piper adds, “I think somehow it was the excitement of being called in on a job, coming in to do it and finding out all the pieces weren’t aligning, but we were the only ones who knew that.”  As architects, Shea and Piper felt as though they were often coming in too late in the process, which marginalized and compartmentalized their efforts. They knew that for a retail space or restaurant to properly materialize, all the parts of the store—from concept to design to build-out to branding—needed to mesh on the same organic level.  “I think we’ve changed that model by saying the architecture component is one subset of what Touchpoint does and now it’s a matter of looking at that project as a whole and understanding and designing it from that perspective,” says Shea.

Read the rest of the article here:

Florida can just keep their palm trees and perfectly manicured greens! Right? I consider it my civic duty to partake in (or at least admire) all things Winter – this includes (but is not limited to) ice shanty building, curling, ice golf AND skyway golf. Tanek feels the same way – they actually sponsored the 9th hole. What does this mean? It means moola for the Boys and Girls Club of the Twin Cities and fun for you!

Touchpoint Retail (the company that redefined retail) designed the 9th hole as an homage (yeah, I said that) to all things music in Minneapolis – right down to the tambourine.

The event begins on Thursday, February 25 and runs through Saturday, February 27 (2010) and is expected to bring over 1,000 (mini) golfers to the downtown skyway system.

And if this is anything like last year, expect to see  a fist-fight between Amelia Santaniello and Diana Pierce.

Nice to meet you.