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| In 1994, former fashion entrepreneur Murray Moss opened a store called Moss in a small gallery space in Soho with a determination to transform the public perception of industrial product design. The store quickly became reknowned for its fine product selection and idiosyncratic presentation with clients ranging from highly informed design professionals to celebrities, students, and tourists with maps. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| In the year prior to opening, B+R worked in a rich collaboration with Murray Moss creating an identity for the new store – designing and producing logos, signage, advertising and various printed materials that had an often irreverent, but always humorous point of view. Context is everything at Moss. And like the products sold at the store, the graphics play with context to alter or reveal the nature of objects. |
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 As Moss’ reputation quickly grew, so did the product line. B+R were called upon to create additional phases of advertising and store collateral, as well as posters and in-store graphics for the popular and often scandalous events. Humor, jarring juxtapositions, and a sense of the perverse flavored these projects, and further focused the Moss identity and allure.As interest and sales continued to increase, Moss's retail space began to feel cramped. Since moving was not an option, B+R created a "virtual expansion" accessible via an in-store computer "elevator". The resulting Moss in-store kiosk debuted in 1999 – earning us an ID Magazine Interactive Design Award, generating a lot of press for Moss, and bringing many new accounts for B+R. |
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 The in-store kiosk was an immersive experience of travelling to different "virtual floors" of Moss to view furniture, and product lines too extensive for the small space of the physical store. The ride came complete with opening and closing elevator doors, muzak and often startling sound effects and visuals. The kiosk became an event in itself and brought many curious visitors to the store.As the shop grew – expanding to nearly 7,000 square feet in late 1999 – the product base also expanded to include furniture. Today, Moss offers one of the world's most sophisticated selections of furnishings and lighting contextualized in presentation with porcelain tableware, crystal and cutlery from the greatest designers of the 20th and 21st centuries. |
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| "Arguably the best design store in America". |
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The New York Times |
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| "Ask any visual freak in New Yorak what their favorite design shop is and they will tell you it's Moss". |
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| In 2000 Murray Moss decided to take his design philosophy to the internet. The design of this first Moss web site transposed the look and feel of the store to the internet, which was not an easy task. At Moss, context is fundamental, and value can be inferred from inaccessibility. The shop intentionally looks and feels like a museum with everything locked behind glass in cases or raised onto platforms. B+R continued this theme of cases and platforms (as well as the ubiquitous shop clerk) in the design of this highly interactive first site. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 The success of the first site with only a limited product offering, convinced the folks at Moss that a full e-commerce site was needed and in 2002 mossonline.com was launched.Brown+Ryan worked with Chalkie Davies of Davies+Starr to produce images for the site that would be many steps above the quality of images on other web sites. The mossonline site is intentionally spare and treats the product with the utmost respect – carrying over the gallery setting of the store. B+R went to great lengths to create clear and rich images showing with many details and related objects. In addition, B+R designed and produced a clear, well-formatted and easy to understand administration area making updates and tracking sales easy for even a regular "lo-tech" person to do. Sales were impressive from the start and are continually growing as the site becomes more and more popular, mostly by word of mouth and with very little advertising. A wedding registry was recently added by B+R and instantly became one of the most popular areas of the site. Moss has undoubtedly been instrumental in shaping the direction of design retail, and the store and web sites function as arbiter, advocate, presenter, as well as gallery, showroom and salon. Moss has also helped shape the surrounding Soho retail geography. As art galleries continue to depart, Greene Street has become a housewares enclave and Soho is increasingly filled with high end fashion, such as Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel. B+R continue to enjoy a close collaboration with Moss. |
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