Visual Merchandise Design

Visual Merchandise Design

1. window display

   • art of the high street
     • artist - aspects of life into something visual window dresser - commercial aspects into something visually stimulating
     • tactical marketing method
       • Lasting Impact
       • Branding Ability
     • Glamour into pedestrian life
     • Modern Window display born in France
       • Elsa Schiaparelli fasion designer collaborated with artists to move design out of its confined borders by presenting commercially
       • Many artists began in window display
         • e.g. Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist
       • Salvador Dali, surrealism 1930s Bonwit Teller store NY
     • followed developments in the art world
     • "All department stores will become museums and all museums will become department stores" - Andy Warhol
     • art (window displays) should engage a response, elicit a reaction and initiate an interaction
       • creativity is no less than set design/exhibition design difference is place
         • art NEEDS an audience and how many people actually go to view art in an art gallery
         • art is getting out of the controlled envrionment of a gallery and jumping out at people when they least expect it
         • "I argue that some of the most site specific art is the windows of Harvey Nichols" Brian Sewell, Evening Standard
         • 30/40 ft stage sets look great from an audience who is far away but up close can look crude and rough however windows are up close to the audience
       • art should offer reinterpretation, propose new angle on familiar, brighter, loftier and more controversial than regular life
   • In the Past
     • means of introducing light into a dark shop
     • small
     • functional
     • very little stock places at front of the window so to not block light
       • transformed to selling tools when shops became larger and availiblity of plate-glass
   • Grow in importance in direct proportion to the size of the store
     • dynamic windows aren't synonymous with large budget
       • most creative/inventive have been on the most limited budgets
       • "The 3 Graces" of budget visual merchandising, humour, quirkiness and surrealism
   • with modern merchandising and online/catalogue shopping shop windows must really entice customers
     • can be dismissed by retailers but are never left
     • most underused form of advertising
     • can turn a pedestrian into a customer at any time
     • most economic form of advertising, works round the clock even when shop is closed
     • "why should they want to buy from me?"
       • product not enough - depth and story behind product (**)
     • give energy to the customer and a reason for them to buy somerthing
   • Seasonal
     • face of Christmas (Fenicks)
     • Not just 4 seasons, no less than 8 for merchandising
   • You only have a few second to grab the viewers attention
     • changing products more often will stimulate more people to look
     • visual puns - humour
     • making a scene with obvious layers forcing members of the public to stop and explore
     • Colour
       • religions, superstitions, cultures have given colour meanings, trigger feelings within people
       • passers by generally aren't focussed on shopping so evoking emotions towards a product through colour works
       • colour creates character less propping needed
       • pitch and tone, e.g icy blue/ serene blue
     • (**)using the product within the design not always the key
       • props
         • which values will the props attach to the product
         • fashion the product/store's carachter and identity and can make it unique
         • doesn't always have to be directly related to product
         • doesn't have to be relevant but should engage a response
       • space
         • how much interplay between space and product
         • space to prop ration (less is more, more is more)
       • logical explorations - what is this product about?
         • twisting interpretations, tangents, wordplay and historical associations
     • Lighting
       • should try and recreate natural light, neither too garish or too dull
     • taste
       • e.g. if promoting clothes could the mannequin walk out the window in what it is wearing
       • invoke a sense of movement
       • cheap will always look cheap use quantity over quality
   • If "windows are the eyes to the soul" then "shop windows are the eyes to the soul of the shop"