12 Best Retail Design Agencies in 2026
Key takeaways:
- "Retail design" means two different jobs. One builds the store; the other builds the brand you see on the shelf and the screen. This list separates them, because almost no roundup does.
- Awesomic does not design or build store interiors, and we say so plainly. We sit in the second group.
- Fit-out and packaging are different orders of magnitude: a store rollout is a construction budget, while a packaging refresh is a design one.
- If your packaging says "recyclable," FTC rules require the whole package to be recyclable and facilities to reach a substantial majority, defined as at least 60% of consumers where it sells.
Search for retail design agencies and you get two completely different kinds of company mixed together. One designs physical stores: layout, fixtures, lighting, millwork, fabrication and installation. The other designs the brand that fills them: identity, packaging, shelf presence and the digital storefront alongside.
Both are legitimately called retail design, and hiring the wrong one wastes a quarter. So this list is split into those two groups, labeled, with each firm placed where its own website says it belongs.
We are in the second group, and it is worth being direct about the limit that implies. Awesomic does not do store environments, fixtures or fit-out. If you need a store built, one of the five firms in the first section is your answer and we will not pretend otherwise.
What we do cover is the brand side of the shelf, which is why we keep a dedicated retail designer role rather than treating retail as ordinary graphic work.
The two things "retail design" means
A store-environment firm sells space. Its work is measured in square feet and rollouts, its deliverables are drawings, fixtures and installed millwork, and its team includes architects and often its own fabrication capacity. Engagements run in months, sometimes years, and cost what construction costs.
A retail brand and packaging firm sells what the shopper reads. Its work is identity, structural and graphic packaging, labeling, point-of-sale graphics and the e-commerce presence that now sits beside the physical shelf. Deliverables are artwork and guidelines, and the budget is a design budget.
The overlap is real but narrow. A store designer will have opinions about your brand, and a packaging designer will have opinions about your shelf. Neither substitutes for the other, and the honest question to open a call with is which of the two problems you are actually solving. If it turns out to be neither, our roundup of graphic design agencies covers the broader category.
The 12 best retail design agencies
The table marks which group each firm belongs to. All eleven specialist rows read Quoted, since none of those firms puts a rate on its website, which is normal for project-based store work and for brand engagements alike. Only our own subscription figure appears as a number.
| Firm | Group | Best for | Main services | Location | Pricing (from) | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Awesomic | Brand and packaging | Ongoing retail brand and packaging work | Branding, packaging, retail graphics, web | Distributed | $1,490/month | ★★★★★ |
| Chute Gerdeman | Store environment | Concept-led store experiences | Store concept, environment, brand experience | Westerville, OH | Quoted | ★★★★★ |
| Miller Zell | Store environment | Rollouts at national scale | Environment design, fabrication, installation | No public address | Quoted | ★★★★★ |
| Sergio Mannino Studio | Store environment | Design-forward specialty retail | Retail interiors, brand design | Brooklyn, NY | Quoted | ★★★★☆ |
| King Retail Solutions | Store environment | Design through to installed store | Interior design, fabrication, installation | No public address | Quoted | ★★★★☆ |
| JPRA Architects | Store environment | Retail and mixed-use architecture | Architecture, retail and mixed-use design | Michigan | Quoted | ★★★★☆ |
| Turner Duckworth | Brand and packaging | Globally recognized brand marks | Brand identity, packaging design | No public address | Quoted | ★★★★★ |
| SmashBrand | Brand and packaging | Testing packaging before launch | Packaging design, brand strategy, testing | Boise, ID and Boulder, CO | Quoted | ★★★★☆ |
| Design Womb | Brand and packaging | Food and beverage CPG | CPG branding, food packaging design | San Francisco and Chicago | Quoted | ★★★★☆ |
| Kaleidoscope | Brand and packaging | Category-wide brand systems | Brand strategy, packaging, innovation | No public address | Quoted | ★★★★☆ |
| Anthem Branding | Brand and packaging | Brand plus physical merchandise | Branding, packaging, merchandise | Boulder, CO | Quoted | ★★★☆☆ |
| DD.NYC | Brand and packaging | Retail brands that live online | Digital design, branding, CPG work | New York, NY | Quoted | ★★★☆☆ |
Locations are what each firm publishes on its own site. Where a cell reads "No public address," that firm does not publish a street address anywhere we could find, which is worth knowing before you plan a site visit.
Store environment and fit-out agencies
The five firms below design the physical store. If your project involves square footage, fixtures or a rollout, start here, and note that the top high end retail design and build agencies in this group carry fabrication in-house rather than subcontracting it.
Chute Gerdeman
Overview: A retail experience design firm working on store concepts and brand environments, with a long track record in specialty retail, grocery and restaurant formats.
Core services:
- Store concept development from positioning through to built environment
- Environmental graphics and wayfinding inside the store
- Brand experience strategy applied to physical space
Industries served: Specialty retail, grocery, restaurant and food service, convenience
Pricing: Nothing published. Store environment work is costed per project and quoted once discovery is done.
Pros: genuine concept depth rather than decoration, publishes a verifiable address at 501 West Schrock Road in Westerville, Ohio, long history in the discipline
Cons: no published pricing, project timelines run in months, and it is far more capability than a single store needs
Notable clients or work: Publishes retail experience work across specialty and food retail formats.
Why it is here: It is the clearest example of a firm that starts with the shopper's experience rather than the floor plan.
Final verdict: A strong first call for a concept that has to work across many stores.
Miller Zell
Overview: A brand environment firm that both designs and manufactures, describing itself as delivering environments built for scale. Its own site shows the fabrication floor rather than a studio, which tells you what it optimizes for.
Core services:
- Retail environment design across large store estates
- In-house fabrication of fixtures and branded elements
- Installation and rollout management across many sites
Industries served: National retail chains, grocery, convenience, financial services branches
Pricing: No rate appears online. Programs are costed by store count, then quoted.
Pros: design and manufacturing under one roof, built for multi-site rollouts, decades in branded environments
Cons: neither a rate nor a location is published, and the scale orientation suits estates rather than one boutique
Notable clients or work: Publishes branded environment programs for national retail and service estates.
Where it beats the alternatives: Controlling fabrication, which is where multi-store rollouts usually slip.
Final verdict: The option to consider when the problem is a hundred stores, not one.
Sergio Mannino Studio
Overview: A New York studio specializing in retail interiors and brand design, working largely with specialty and design-led retailers on individually considered stores.
Core services:
- Retail interior design for specialty and flagship stores
- Brand design applied through the physical space
- Custom fixture and furniture design
Industries served: Specialty retail, fashion, home, wellness
Pricing: Unlisted, with interior projects costed one at a time.
Pros: strong design point of view, publishes a verifiable Brooklyn address at 117 Grattan Street, comfortable with smaller footprints
Cons: no published pricing, a smaller studio than the rollout specialists, and less suited to a national estate
Notable clients or work: Publishes retail interior work across specialty and consumer brands.
Its niche: Individual stores where the space itself has to be the brand statement.
Final verdict: A good fit for a flagship or a small, design-led chain.
King Retail Solutions
Overview: A retail design firm covering interior design, fabrication and installation, positioned to take a store from concept through to a finished, installed environment.
Core services:
- Retail interior design and store planning
- Fixture fabrication for the designs it produces
- Installation, so one firm carries the project to completion
Industries served: Grocery, convenience, specialty retail, food service
Pricing: Absent from the site; work is priced per program.
Pros: single accountability from design through installation, practical grocery and convenience experience, avoids the design-to-build handoff
Cons: no published pricing, no public street address, and the integrated model gives you less freedom to shop the build separately
Notable clients or work: Publishes store design and build programs across food and convenience retail.
What it is genuinely good at: Removing the gap between the drawing and the installed fixture.
Final verdict: Worth a call when you want one firm answerable for the finished store.
JPRA Architects
Overview: A Michigan architecture practice working across retail and mixed-use development, which puts it at the heavier end of this group where planning and permitting matter.
Core services:
- Retail and mixed-use architecture
- Site planning for retail developments
- Interior architecture for commercial spaces
Industries served: Retail developers, mixed-use, hospitality, commercial property
Pricing: Nothing published. Architectural work carries a per-project quote.
Pros: genuine architectural capability rather than interiors alone, handles the regulatory side, states Michigan as its base on its own site
Cons: no published pricing, architecture-led rather than brand-led, and more firm than a store refresh requires
Notable clients or work: Publishes retail and mixed-use development projects.
Why it is here: Some retail problems are building problems, and this group needs one firm that can handle those.
Final verdict: The right call when the project involves the building, not just the interior.
Retail brand, packaging and digital agencies
Retail brand design agencies handle what the shopper actually reads: identity, packaging, shelf graphics and the online storefront. Awesomic sits in this group, alongside firms that treat the package as the primary advertisement.
Awesomic
Best for: Ongoing retail brand and packaging work
Overview: We are a design subscription, not a store design firm. To repeat the limit stated at the top: we do not do store environments, fixtures or fit-out. What we do is everything a retail brand needs on the shelf and on the screen, delivered continuously rather than as a project.
That distinction matters commercially. Retail brands generate design work constantly, and most of it is too small to justify a new agency scope: a flavor extension, a seasonal carton, a retailer's spec sheet, an Amazon A+ page. A subscription absorbs that flow.
We are backed by Y Combinator and our work has been recognized with a Red Dot Award, which is the design world's own measure rather than a self-reported one.
Yerbaé, a US zero-calorie yerba mate energy drink, is the clearest example of what this looks like in retail. We completed more than 70 design tasks over a year, spanning branding, packaging, web design and social assets, with the explicit goal that new products would stand out on shelves.
Core services:
- Packaging and label design, including line extensions and seasonal variants
- Retail brand identity and the guidelines that keep it consistent
- Point-of-sale, print and merchandising graphics
- E-commerce and marketplace assets, so the digital shelf matches the physical one
- Web design and no-code build in Webflow, Framer and WordPress
- Copywriting and QA once you move to the All-in-One tier
Industries served: Food and beverage, beauty and personal care, wellness, consumer goods, specialty retail
Pricing: Packaging, print and everyday retail graphics sit inside Graphic Pack at $1,490 a month; teams that also need the site and copy move up to All-in-One at $2,995. An AI Designer tier runs $200, and quarterly billing saves 20%.
Pros: continuous capacity for the small work that fills a retail calendar, packaging and digital from one team, no per-project scoping, unlimited revisions
Cons: store environments and fit-out are outside our scope entirely, and every published plan handles one live task
Engagement model: Sign up, receive your match, and file briefs in the app. A designer picks up the first packaging task the following morning.
How to get started with us:
- Book a demo and describe your retail calendar for the next two quarters.
- Choose the tier that matches that volume.
- Get matched with a designer who has shipped packaging before.
- Send the first artwork brief with your printer's specification attached.
- Keep the queue moving through launches and seasonal changes.
Why it belongs among retail design agencies: Because most retail design work is not a store project, it is a steady stream of shelf and screen assets. That is the part we cover, and the part project-based firms are least efficient at.
Final verdict: The right choice for the ongoing brand and packaging load. The wrong one for a store build, where the five firms above are the answer.
Turner Duckworth
Overview: A brand identity and packaging design firm known for work on globally recognized consumer marks, operating at the top of the packaging discipline.
Core services:
- Brand identity design for major consumer brands
- Packaging design and structural brand systems
- Brand world development across touchpoints
Industries served: Beverage, food, technology, consumer goods
Pricing: Not shown anywhere. Engagements are costed project by project.
Pros: exceptional craft and a widely recognized body of work, strong on brand systems rather than one-off artwork, senior involvement
Cons: no fee or office address appears online, and the positioning targets major brands over emerging ones
Notable clients or work: Publishes identity and packaging work for well-known global consumer brands.
Where it beats the alternatives: Marks that have to survive decades and dozens of formats.
Final verdict: The reference point for packaging craft, priced accordingly.
SmashBrand
Overview: A packaging design agency for consumer packaged goods that runs consumer testing as part of its process rather than presenting design on taste alone.
Core services:
- Packaging design for CPG brands entering or defending shelf space
- Brand strategy and positioning ahead of artwork
- Consumer testing of design routes before launch
Industries served: Food and beverage, supplements, household goods, pet
Pricing: Off the page, and quoted engagement by engagement.
Pros: builds testing into the process, publishes addresses in Boise, Idaho and Boulder, Colorado, clear focus on retail performance
Cons: no published pricing, the outcome claims on its own site are self-reported, and the process suits launches more than small tweaks
Notable clients or work: Publishes CPG packaging and rebrand work across food, beverage and household categories.
What it is genuinely good at: Removing the argument from packaging decisions by testing them.
Final verdict: A strong fit for a launch or a rebrand where the shelf result actually matters.
Design Womb
Overview: A strategic branding and packaging studio focused on consumer packaged goods, with particular depth in food, beverage and personal care.
Core services:
- CPG brand identity and positioning
- Food and beverage packaging design
- Brand systems across product lines
Industries served: Restaurants, beverage, cannabis, beauty, personal care, skincare
Pricing: No public figure. Each project carries its own quote.
Pros: genuine category depth in food and beverage, names San Francisco and Chicago on its own site, comfortable with emerging brands
Cons: no published pricing, a smaller studio than the global firms, and its category focus is narrower than a generalist's
Notable clients or work: Publishes CPG branding and packaging work across food, beverage and personal care.
Its niche: Emerging food and beverage brands that need to look established on shelf.
Final verdict: A good match for a growing CPG brand in its categories.
Kaleidoscope
Overview: A brand and innovation firm working across strategy, packaging and product, positioned for consumer businesses managing whole portfolios rather than single products.
Core services:
- Brand strategy and architecture across product portfolios
- Packaging design and structural design
- Innovation and new product development support
Industries served: Consumer goods, health and wellness, food and beverage, pet
Pricing: You will not find a rate; work is costed per engagement.
Pros: strategy and packaging in one place, handles portfolio-wide architecture, innovation capability beyond artwork
Cons: the site names no price and no city, and portfolio-level work exceeds what one SKU line requires
Notable clients or work: Publishes brand and packaging work across consumer categories.
Where it beats the alternatives: Deciding how a portfolio of brands should relate before designing any of them.
Final verdict: The right call for a portfolio problem rather than a packaging problem.
Anthem Branding
Overview: A branding studio that pairs identity and packaging work with physical merchandise production, which makes it unusual among design-only firms.
Core services:
- Brand identity and design systems
- Packaging and label design
- Branded merchandise and physical products
Industries served: Consumer brands, outdoor, food and beverage, lifestyle
Pricing: Unpublished, with design and merchandise quoted as separate lines.
Pros: can produce the physical merchandise it designs, publishes a Boulder, Colorado base, strong lifestyle and outdoor sensibility
Cons: no published pricing, merchandise production is a different commitment from design, and it is less specialized in pure CPG shelf work
Notable clients or work: Publishes branding and merchandise work for consumer and lifestyle brands.
Its niche: Brands whose retail presence includes merchandise as well as packaging.
Final verdict: Useful when the brand extends into physical goods beyond the product itself.
DD.NYC
Overview: A New York digital design agency with a consumer packaged goods practice, strongest where a retail brand's presence is primarily online.
Core services:
- Digital design and e-commerce experience for retail brands
- Brand identity work alongside the digital build
- CPG-specific design projects
Industries served: Consumer goods, e-commerce, technology, retail
Pricing: No public rate card. ⚠ The budget ranges shown on its site are options in a contact form rather than published prices, so treat them as a filter, not a quote.
Pros: genuinely strong on the digital shelf, New York based with published reviews, comfortable across brand and web
Cons: no published pricing, digital-first rather than packaging-first, and less depth in structural packaging
Notable clients or work: Publishes CPG and e-commerce design work.
Why it is here: For many newer retail brands the digital storefront is the primary shelf.
Final verdict: A good option when online is where your product is actually bought.
How we chose these twelve
Two checks did most of the work, and both are things directory listings get wrong.
We read each firm's own site to decide which group it belongs in, rather than accepting the single "retail design" label that directories apply to everyone. That is the whole structure of this article, and it is the thing that saves a reader a wasted call.
We also recorded location only where a firm publishes it. Retail design has a lot of acquisitions and consolidation, and one well-known name illustrates why that matters: CallisonRTKL, long treated as the largest retail design practice in the world, now resolves under Arcadis, the engineering group that acquired it.
A roundup that copies an older list will present it as an independent firm it no longer is. Where we could not verify an address on a firm's own site, the table says "No public address" rather than guessing one. Briefing any of them well matters more than the shortlist does, and our guide to working with a graphic designer covers that groundwork.
Pricing was the third check, and among the specialists it produced nothing. Not one of the eleven puts a figure on its site, so we invented no bands. The cost section below explains the shapes instead.
What retail design costs, and why the two groups differ
The two groups are not on the same scale, and putting them in one table without saying so would be misleading.
| Work | Cost shape | What drives it | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Store concept and prototype | Project fee | Format complexity, number of concepts | Months |
| Multi-site rollout | Per-store program cost | Store count, fixtures, installation, freight | Months to years |
| Retail brand identity | Project fee | Portfolio breadth, research depth | Weeks to months |
| Packaging design, one SKU line | Project fee | Number of SKUs, structural work, testing | Weeks |
| Ongoing retail design | Monthly subscription | The volume you actually run | Continuous |
A store rollout is a construction budget with design attached; packaging is a design budget. Comparing them directly is the most common mistake in this category, which is why the two are separated above rather than averaged into one misleading range.
For the store side, the labor market gives a useful floor. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median annual wage for interior designers at $67,190 in May 2025, with about 7,700 openings a year and 3% growth projected to 2035. That is the in-house alternative, and it is why most retailers buy store design as a project rather than employing it.
The same labor market shapes the brand side. The pay and demand picture for a graphic designer job explains why experienced packaging artworkers are hard to hire and harder to keep on staff.
The packaging rule most design roundups never mention
If your packaging makes an environmental claim, it is regulated, and the design agency is not the one the regulator calls.
The FTC's Green Guides at 16 CFR Part 260 allow an unqualified "recyclable" claim only when the entire product or package, excluding minor incidental components, is recyclable, and recycling facilities are available to a substantial majority of consumers or communities where the item is sold. The Guides define a substantial majority as at least 60%.
That single rule kills a lot of well-intentioned artwork. A carton with a non-recyclable window, a pouch with a metallized liner, or a "recyclable" flash on a package sold nationally where curbside facilities are patchy all risk being deceptive.
Ask any agency you hire who is responsible for substantiating the claim, and get that answer in writing, because the Guides require every claim to be substantiated before it runs. It is one reason we brief every packaging designer on the claim as well as the artwork.
Choosing between the two groups
Answer one question first: does this project change the space, or change the package? Space work goes to the first five firms. Package and brand work goes to the second group.
If the answer is both, sequence them rather than running them together. Brand and packaging decisions should usually land first, because a store environment designed around an identity that then changes is an expensive way to discover the order of operations.
The second question is whether the work is a project or a stream. A store concept is a project. A retail brand's packaging calendar is a stream, and it never really stops: new flavors, new sizes, new retailers with their own spec sheets, seasonal variants.
Teams carrying that load continuously usually find a subscription cheaper than repeated project scoping, and the wider set of unlimited design services shows how that market has priced it.
FAQ
What do retail design agencies actually do?
It depends which kind you call. Store environment firms design the physical space, covering layout, fixtures, lighting and often fabrication and installation. Retail brand design agencies handle identity, packaging, shelf graphics and the digital storefront. Both are marketed as retail design, so ask any firm to describe its last three projects before assuming which one you are talking to.
How much do the best retail design agencies charge?
None of the eleven specialist firms in this list publishes a rate. Store work is quoted as a project or a per-store program and behaves like a construction budget, while brand and packaging work is quoted per project and behaves like a design budget. Ongoing packaging support is the one part of this category commonly available on a subscription, starting at $1,490 a month with us.
Which are the top packaging design agencies for retail?
Among the firms here, the top packaging design agencies for retail are Turner Duckworth, SmashBrand, Design Womb and Kaleidoscope, with different strengths: global brand systems, consumer testing, food and beverage depth, and portfolio architecture respectively. Choose on category experience and whether they test, not on portfolio aesthetics alone. Craft still matters on the artwork itself, and our print design guide covers where generated imagery does and does not hold up in production.
Do I need a high end retail design and build agency, or just a designer?
The top high end retail design and build agencies earn their fee when the output is a physical store, because the handoff between drawings and installed fixtures is where projects fail. Miller Zell and King Retail Solutions both fold fabrication and installation into their offer for that reason. If your output is artwork rather than millwork, a design-only firm or a subscription is the cheaper and faster route.
Can one agency handle both store design and packaging?
Some claim to, but very few do both well, because the disciplines need different teams, and a firm strong in millwork rarely has structural packaging expertise in-house. The practical approach is to hire the specialist for the larger part of the problem and let them coordinate with the other. Sequence the brand work first so the environment gets designed around a settled identity.
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FAQ
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