Design | Signum opens second retail store

Clement Cheng (center)

Around 50 people gathered in a building on Rua de Ferreira do Amaral last night to celebrate the opening of a new design store in the city.
The store, Signum’s second retail space in Macau, showcases clothing, apparel and interior furnishings by both local and foreign designers from countries such as France, Denmark and Taiwan. The new shop, located near Jardin de Vasco da Gama, is the company’s largest.
Among the products offered in the new, two-storied shop are chairs, desk units, light-
shades and lamps, sunglasses, and general ornaments. The company is marketing its products to local residents, tourists, and businesses in Macau, such as large hotel entities.
The opening coincides with the fifth anniversary of Signum’s first retail space in the territory, which can be found in the Barra area near the A-Ma Temple.
Company owner and local entrepreneur Clement Cheng addressed yesterday’s crowd, saying that he hopes that Macau “likes the shop and likes what the brand stands for.”

Signum’s new shop

At yesterday’s ceremony, he unveiled: a mobile app for the company, which is linked to various social networks and allows users to browse Signum’s products.
At the host’s request, many of the opening ceremony’s attendees downloaded the app, and shared their location on social networks, as well as posting on news feeds to get the word out.
Cheng, who has been an interior designer for around seven years, told the Times yesterday that he is on a mission to educate the general public in Macau about the importance of design.
“It’s not just an ornament,” he said, gesturing to an item in the store. “These [design] products are meant to change the way that you live your life.”
He said that people in Macau are not really aware of this concept, nor is the government, as both groups tend to think of design as a field that focuses mainly on products and graphics, rather than interior design.