In Valencia, Masquespacio designed the first concept store for Rubio, the Spanish publisher known for its educational workbooks. The project translates the brand’s visual identity and educational heritage into a colourful and interactive retail environment where books, graphics and digital experiences become part of the spatial narrative.
Covering more than 200 sqm, the store combines references to Rubio’s history with a deliberately futuristic language. Neon lighting, coloured methacrylate, graphic surfaces and custom display systems create a sequence of environments designed to encourage visitors to explore and interact with the different collections.
The Rubio identity becomes an interior landscape
Masquespacio developed the concept around the relationship between Rubio’s past and its future. The familiar graphic world of the educational workbooks is translated into architecture through surfaces that recall blank sheets of paper, combined with a palette of turquoise, yellow and blue.
Fine grids covering floors, walls and display elements reinforce this graphic dimension, creating an almost continuous backdrop for books and interactive installations. Against this neutral framework, translucent coloured structures and luminous elements identify the different areas of the store.
The result retains the visual immediacy associated with Rubio while transforming it into a three-dimensional environment. Graphics are no longer confined to the product: they become a device for organising space, circulation and display.
A retail space designed for interaction
The layout is organised around different areas dedicated to mathematics, writing, reading and workshops. Each collection has its own display setting, but the presentation of the products is combined with activities that encourage visitors to participate rather than simply browse the shelves.
In the mathematics area, for example, the backs of rotating displays become blackboards where visitors can practise mathematical operations. Elsewhere, a methacrylate writing surface provides a similar opportunity to experiment with handwriting.
These elements turn conventional retail fixtures into interactive devices, connecting the physical characteristics of Rubio’s educational products with the way customers experience the store.
The colour tunnel and digital experiences
One of the most distinctive elements is the colour tunnel, conceived as a transition within the Rubio universe. Repeated illuminated arches frame a yellow passage, introducing a spatial sequence that combines colour, light and movement.
The interactive experience continues through a series of physical and digital installations, including a viewing hole in the shop window, a time machine with augmented-reality glasses, a roulette presenting the publisher’s history, an audio storytelling device and a projection room.
Traditional activities such as reading, writing and solving mathematical exercises therefore coexist with tablets, projections and augmented-reality experiences. Technology is integrated as another layer of the project rather than becoming the sole focus of the store.
From educational publishing to interactive retail
The Rubio Concept Store extends the publisher’s identity beyond the printed page. Masquespacio uses colour, graphics, light and interactive installations to transform the educational content associated with the brand into a physical environment that can be explored by both children and adults.
Rather than treating the store simply as a point of sale, the project combines product display with learning, play and digital interaction. Rubio’s graphic heritage becomes the starting point for a contemporary retail language in which the visitor actively participates in the experience.
Project: Rubio Concept Store
Location: Valencia, Spain
Design: Masquespacio
Area: 200 sqm
Photo credit: Luis Beltrán