nijhof bouw- en woonwaren




Nijhof was one of my most extensive projects. For 5 years I worked on establishing Nijhof as a leading hardware and home decoration shop. They wanted to upgrade to a premium store. The briefing was done as an elevator pitch: "Make my DIY company De Bijenkorf amongst hardware stores". My responsibility was to conceptualize the new strategy and subsequently position the shop accordingly.

Activities included: strategy development, collection planning and aligning them with specific target audiences, purchase advise, shop layout, display design, realize themed window displays, organize events both in store and externally, publishing a corporate magazine, deciding on a corporate clothing collection, elaborating innovative initiatives with suppliers, other DIY stores and branch organizations, making sure the shop is featured in leading media, managing my own team, implementing all of this in the organization and inspire.

All this happened while sales continued and the store was open to the public. My key takeaway from this project was that a creative process cannot be seen separately from implementing a cultural change. 

All in all, I had a fantastic time at Nijhof where I could grow together with Nijhof for a few years. Special thanks go to Jan Nijhof and Gijs Kranendonk.


As an introduction, I share here the introductory text of the first Nijhof magazine. This magazine was meant to provide a lot of background information about the change of course of Nijhof.




Showrooms in the furniture department.



Together with Marita van Wijngaarden I produced a series of 'corporate magazines'.



With René Knip I collaborated on the development the graphic identity.



With Mart Visser I collaborated on the development the company corporate clothing.



The upgrade of the assortiment was a continuous process. Both the interior decoration products and the building assortment became of higher quality and more up-to-date. Purchasing teams consisted of sales managers and stylists.



The article below on the assortment policy was in the first Nijhof magazine. That magazine was meant to provide a lot of background information about the change of course of Nijhof.



Because Nijhof wanted to serve consumers with different tastes, it was difficult to make offers about one specific product. Suppliers of the new, higher-quality collections also did not want their current items to be included in an offer. That is why Nijhof was the first department store to offer discounts on entire groups of products. This allowed different customers with different tastes to buy different items with advantage.



On Sundays we organized events. By doing so we could give background information about products through demonstrations and workshops. But above all it was a nice way to surprise and pamper our customers. I'll show here two examples.



Featured in the press.











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