One SF State student has made a lasting impression on how some local businesses on 6th Street look.

Collaboration between a local non-profit organization and SF State’s apparel design and merchandising students allows them to use their studies to make the layouts and storefronts of small businesses on 6th Street more aesthetically pleasing to shoppers.

In May, Emily Wann, a 23-year-old senior apparel design and merchandising major, decided to help local businesses compete with large corporations by doing her internship with Urban Solutions.

Urban Solutions has been involved in getting local businesses to open in areas of San Francisco that were once vacant. It was started in 1992 as the South of Market Foundation. They have since expanded and now also have an office in the Fillmore neighborhood.

The chance for students to combine what they have learned with real life experience to help local stores came after Tracy Everwine, project manager at Urban Solutions, contacted SF State’s apparel design and merchandising professor Connie Ulasewicz.

Working with Urban Solutions offers the students hands-on experience and gives 6th Street merchants assistance with their visual merchandising, according to both Everwine and Ulasewicz.

Wann is one of five SF State students who have worked with Urban Solutions since January.

“She’s fantastic,” Everwine said. “She really has a terrific sense of design and of the owner’s needs.”

Although other fashion design and merchandising students have worked for Urban Solutions, Wann is the first to intern there.

“It takes time to develop a good relationship with organizations and to make the connection fruitful for all,” Ulasewicz said.

She is also anxious to see more SF State student interns, and Wann agrees.

“We're hoping to expand the program in the future,” Wann said. “The need for merchandisers in their organization is growing.”

The duties involved in Wann’s internship include arranging the new stores’ layouts and designing their window displays.

Wann has been involved with the layouts of several stores. Over the summer she transformed a 40-foot window display at City Produce, a produce store on 6th Street, and the entire layout of Arkipelago Philippine Bookstore on Mission Street. She also did the storefront of Maximum Momma Maternity near West Portal.

“She’s my God,” said Marie Romero, owner of Arkipelago Philippine Bookstore. “She did everything for me. She has a good eye.”

Arkipelago Philippine Bookstore is one of her most recent tasks. It opens October 21st and is Wann’s favorite because she was the most involved in its layout.

“I don’t take all the credit,” Wann said. “But it’s the one I did from scratch. Built it up from inside out.”

The store’s décor includes a dark round table in the front. Behind the counter is long a painting of the owner when she was a child. Above some of the windows sits several baskets of different sizes.

Because the store is not officially opened yet, the front window is still covered by brown paper.

“Everything she has is from the Philippines,” Wann said.

She went on to explain how she had to convince Romero to put up her portrait.

It took a couple of days to arrange the entire layout of the store. She spent a whole day sketching, while the rest of the time was spent staining and painting old pieces of furniture the owner was going to throw out.

“She gave me directions on what would be best,” Romero said. “We recycled a lot of my things and saved a lot of money.”

One of the recycled pieces, a large wooden bookcase Wann painted, turned out to be one of Wann’s favorites in the store.

“That awful old shelf came out fantastic,” said Wann, pointing to the bookcase that now takes up most of the store’s only full wall.

“We look forward to working with SFSU's Apparel Design and Merchandising Department as we continue 6th Street revitalization efforts,” Everwine said.