As you lay out your pharmacy store design, you will also be choosing the colors and materials for your medical pharmacy.
Choosing the right colors and materials for your medical pharmacy
Keep your customers in mind. Make your choices:
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Warm and inviting
Today's medical pharmacies aren't the institutional, washed out, fluorescent lit establishments of old. Soft lighting, homey floor coverings like real or imitation wood floors, stylish tile – even carpeting, and pastel walls can make for a welcoming pharmacy store design.
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Clean but not sterile
Although your first go-to color for painting and anything else in regard to your decor may be white or other close variations (beige, tan, eggshell), be sure to choose other "clean" colors for your palette, too. Light blues, greens, and grays, for example, can give you a very "clean" look, while pastel colors with bright or dark accents like navy or even bright red are visually interesting but still calming. Either color approach gives your store a clean, fresh look without making it appear "hospital sterile."
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Natural
Feel free to mix up your decor with some "natural" accents like wood flooring. Wood flooring and other wood accents makes customers feel at home. Although you certainly want to provide a good shopping experience for your customers, you have a unique situation on your hands. Many of your customers won't feel well and won't really want to be there. By providing them a soothing interior, though, you may actually make them feel better and lift their spirits.
While plants may not be appropriate for the interior of your store, you can certainly use natural lighting whenever possible. For example, you may provide visually interesting wall hangings or paintings that include soft blue and green, or even use skylights – thus inviting nature in without risking allergies or other reactions from your clients.
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Modern with a touch of class
There's a reason that the "institutional" look a pharmacy store design was so commonplace for so long. It is easy to keep clean and evokes the sort of sterile "hospital" feel that pharmacies are often so closely associated with.
However, to bring your store into the 21st century, you can go modern with a touch of class if you so choose. Along with wood floors, which evoke a homey and inviting feel, you can also mix and match fixtures made of metal and even glass to give your store a modern look. Not only does this make your store even more esthetically pleasing, but it gives it a "clean" look that will make your customers more comfortable and confident that you're actually clean – and that they're protected – as well.
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Easy to get around in
Finally, your pharmacy store design should be easy to get around in for your customers. Provide easy to navigate traffic areas that meander through your store, and provide plenty of seating for disabled customers who may need to sit and rest while they wait for prescriptions or complete their shopping.
Ideally, your store should have a path through it that meanders counterclockwise around the store and hits every department; make sure to provide extra seating back by the pharmacy where customers can easily wait for their prescriptions.
Bring your medical pharmacy into the 21st century by giving it a clean and yet esthetically pleasing feel that isn't in the least institutional or sterile. You will meet the needs of your customers and business with this pharmacy store design, in that you'll be meeting necessary health regulations, but can still provide an inviting environment for your customers at the same time.
