Target puts its design legacy on display at museum

NEW YORK — Target is putting its design heritage — and its ambitions for the future — on display with an immersive exhibition that turns everything from shopping carts and prescription bottles to the retailer’s familiar bags into objects of design.

The Minneapolis-based retailer opened “Target by Design” this week, a two-day New Museum Retail Experience timed to coincide with New York Fashion Week. The free presentation, open Sept. 10 and 11 at 235 Bowery, celebrates Target’s long-running effort to make good design accessible while highlighting emerging creative talent.

“Target by Design celebrates our long-standing commitment to making great design accessible, while showcasing the creative talent and ideas shaping what’s next,” said Michelle Mesenburg, Target’s chief brand officer. “Across every aspect of our business and brand experience, our belief in the power of great design for all guides how we deliver what our guests have come to expect from Target: amazing style, thoughtful design and incredible value.”

The exhibition builds on a strategy that has helped distinguish Target in mass retail for decades. Its archive includes products from some of the retailer’s best-known designer partnerships, including Michael Graves, Missoni and Marimekko, as well as innovations such as the ClearRx prescription bottle and the evolution of the Target shopping cart.

But Target by Design is intended to look forward as well as backward.

The pop-art-inspired experience is organized around three immersive environments: The Store, The Bag and The Archive.

“The Store: Designed for Discovery” transforms familiar elements of a Target shopping trip into interactive installations. The “Magic Mobile” turns everyday merchandise into an immersive display, while “Bullseye the Oracle” puts a Target spin on the classic fortune-teller game. Seven “Doors of Discovery” open onto experiences inspired by Style, Beauty, Home, Food, Wellness, Kids and Culture.

“The Bag: Designed by You” puts the spotlight on another familiar piece of Target iconography: its shopping bag. Artists and designers were invited to reinterpret the bag, with contributors including Public School New York designers Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne, Chloë Sevigny, Venus Williams, Laila Gohar, Max Alexander, Kahlana Barfield Brown and Daniel Arsham.

Their work is displayed alongside creations from emerging designers at Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design.

Visitors can also create their own versions of the Target bag using heat-pressed graphics, scarves, keychains and pins, underscoring the exhibition’s theme that design should be participatory rather than exclusive.

The presentation debuted Wednesday evening with an opening event featuring DJ sets by SOFI TUKKER, Amrit Tietz and Louise Chen. Guests received a first look at Target’s design archive and the collection of bespoke bags created for New York Fashion Week.

The experience will extend beyond the Bowery exhibition. On Sept. 12, Target plans to bring an interactive customization experience to its SoHo concept store, featuring exclusive bags from the presentation along with a new fall denim line. The retailer is also using its Instagram account to give consumers a chance to win one of 10 Target bags reinterpreted by Public School New York.

Target by Design also highlights the retailer’s efforts to develop the next generation of creative talent. Through partnerships with Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design and the Youth Design Center, Target is providing students and emerging designers with professional development, mentorship, industry exposure and opportunities to participate in case challenges.

Those programs reinforce a central theme of the exhibition: Target sees accessible design not simply as part of its history, but as an element of its future brand identity.

By putting familiar retail objects alongside designer collaborations and work from emerging creatives, Target is using the New York event to connect the design equity it has built over decades with a new generation of consumers and creators.