Businessweek:

Apple has 423 stores, as of March, and it makes more money in sales per square foot—$4,551—than any other U.S.-based retailer, according to EMarketer RETAIL. The stores’ success has a lot to do with their design, a fact not lost on Apple, which has patented its distinctive store layout, glass cube, and floating staircase in the U.S. The company recently won permission to apply for trademark protection in the European Union.

I talked recently with 8’s Tim Kobe—the designer who worked closely with Jobs to create the computer store’s iconic look—about how Apple changed the retail landscape. From that conversation, five lessons emerged as to what businesses can learn from Apple’s then-outlandish example.

The article itself is interesting, touching on some of the core reasons why the Apple Store is different and why it succeeded so wildly.

But also interesting is the work done by Tim Kobe and 8 Inc., the design studio that worked with Steve Jobs on the iconic design of the Apple Store. Here’s a link to the 8 Inc. web site. And here’s a link to 8’s Apple Store sub-site.