Reviving Circuit City
Championing DIY Tech and Circular Economy
Introduction
I have developed a rebranding concept for Circuit City, once a dominant force in the American electronics retail market for over thirty years. In 2008, Circuit City declared bankruptcy due to inaccurate market predictions, mismanagement, and an inability to compete with the emerging Best Buy. Circuit City’s business model was originally based on three core brand values:
- Extensive Product Range
- Competitive Pricing
- Customer Service
However, the rise of the internet changed consumer expectations, leading to a preference for less interaction with in-store personnel. This shift partly explains why Best Buy’s model, which emphasized minimal employee-customer interaction, gradually took over the market. Believing that Circuit City deserves a revival, I propose a fresh new business model, customer experience, and brand identity.
The new Concept
My vision is to reintroduce Circuit City as a retailer and repair shop for refurbished electronics and a hub for DIY electronics workshops, aligning the brand with 21st-century values such as promoting a circular economy, local engagement, and community involvement. I found that the global market for refurbished electronics is projected to grow by 170% by 2030 (according to Maximize Market Research). This expansion is expected due to the high demand for affordable electronics and increasing awareness of sustainability issues.
I want to transform Circuit City from a large, coldly lit retail store with a warehouse ambiance into a more intimate, small, neighborhood coffee shop-style store. Circuit City should become a welcoming place that people enjoy visiting. In addition to selling refurbished devices primarily through the Circuit City website, the physical stores should offer workshops for customers to learn electronic repairs. Circuit City aims to be a hub for those interested in electronics, providing a platform for information exchange and relationship building. With these changes, Circuit City’s new core principles are:
- Customer Service
- Community
- Education
- Low Cost
- Sustainability
To better conceptualize how the revamped Circuit City might fit into the market and to understand all the value exchanges between relevant parties, I have created the following stakeholder map. The Circuit City business, positioned at the center, primarily engages with three parties: its customers, educators, and employees. Value exchanges are categorized as either qualitative or quantitative, with an emphasis on interpersonal relationships and customer retention.
Competitors
I identified three major competitors, each distinctly different from the others. On one hand, there’s Back Market, an online store specializing in selling refurbished electronics in the U.S., lacking any repair services or physical store locations. On the other hand, there are Repair Cafe and The Restart Project, both of which are non-profit, community-run organizations dedicated to teaching device repair and promoting a repair culture. I believe there is a market gap that can be effectively filled by Circuit City’s new business model. This model combines a low-contact online store offering affordable electronics with an empowering, community-focused brand. Such a brand would enable people to identify with and build relationships around it, bridging the existing market gap. I summarized my findings on these three competitors in the following document…
Target Audience
As I began the project with an initial concept idea for the new Circuit City business model, the target group became apparent during the creation of the value map and competitor research. My aim is to target younger North Americans, specifically those aged 18 to 45, and their children, for whom Circuit City offers special workshops. To design the brand experience, I envisioned hypothetical users and developed customer journeys around them. These personas include Sarah, a 33-year-old single mother with limited time and money, who needs to purchase a laptop for her son’s education, and Carlos, a 20-year-old computer science student seeking to repair his phone affordably while making new connections with peers. Having recently moved to study in a different city, he is longing for social contact. I crafted extensive user personas based on these characters, imagining what their lives could be like and the challenges they might face.
Customer Journey Map
To better understand how my customers interact with the brand and to identify which touchpoints I needed to design, I sketched out two customer journeys: one for Sarah, who is looking to buy a refurbished laptop for her son, and another for Carlos, who wants to get his phone fixed. Sarah’s experience with the brand is solely digital, while Carlos’s journey includes visiting the Circuit City store, interacting with employees, and even buying coffee at the in-store coffee shop.
Grid Systems
At this point, I better understood what the brand should look and feel like. I wanted to move away from Circuit City’s original color scheme of Red, Black, and White and move towards something more grounded, friendly, and less aggressive. I tried various grid systems and styles for the website, oscillating between experimental and “fun” approaches and more stiff and corporate feels. I experimented with modular grids, which would have given the website a more editorial feel. Still, I decided to move forward with a column grid system for clarity and visibility.
Color, Logo & Typeface
After settling on a rough initial layout for the website, I explored different color schemes that could represent Circuit City’s new image, as shown below. I experimented with pastel tones (on the far left) and blue and yellow (in the middle), which, although already used by brands like Best Buy, I still considered. I also tried more experimental approaches, like the one on the far right, but ultimately discarded it as it felt too abstract and more reminiscent of a cultural event page or a museum website.
In terms of the logo, I aimed to create something simple and easily recognizable, a design that would look good on coffee cups and t-shirts yet still reflect the store’s ethos. I decided to move forward with the example in the middle below. For the logo’s typeface, I selected “Orelega One,” a serif font that conveys playfulness while maintaining a sense of quality. For titles and paragraphs on the website, I chose the easily readable sans-serif typeface “Radio Canada,” and for quotes, I use another serif typeface called “Tiro Bangla.”
From this point on, I iterated the design, striving for improvement. Initially, I was dissatisfied with the color combinations and the exact layout of the website, so I continued experimenting until I found the colors that pleased me. I chose a combination of blue (0C356A), yellow (FFC436) and white (FFFFFF). Although these colors are already used by Circuit City’s old competitor, Best Buy, I believe that with a new concept focused on repairing devices, education, and selling refurbished tech, Circuit City will no longer be a direct competitor.
I received feedback that my current design, intended for an intimate and welcoming store, still appeared too corporate. In response, I experimented further and decided to break up horizontal lines and add illustrations that I created using DALL·E 3. I added micro-interactions for buttons, hover states and even added a new kids page (below, on the far right). My persona Sarah is looking to buy a laptop for her son and has limited time. I see this as an opportunity for her to engage further with Circuit City as she is also looking to expand her social network and making some time for herself on the weekends.
Key take aways
This passion project has taught me a great deal about shaping a brand’s experience using colors, grid systems, fonts, and language. It has also enlightened me about the process of completely redesigning a brand from scratch. If I had more time, I would love to revisit the beginning and conduct user research to validate my assumed user personas, Carlos and Sarah. Additionally, I would like to design the interior of a Circuit City repair store, as this is a crucial aspect of the user experience.
I thoroughly enjoyed researching for this project and envisioning a new concept for an old electronics retailer in the 21st century. I read that Circuit City was recently acquired, so if anyone from Circuit City is reading this and is interested, I am more than happy to collaborate.
