Good window displays also take a certain amount of artistic talent, but that’s not to say retailers can’t nurture their own artistic talent.
Once the ideas are there, organised planning is the next step; Window designs should always embody a unifying theme, whether that’s colour, texture, shape or balance. It’s also great when the theme from the window display follows through from the window to the store interior.
For example, the customer may see the colour red from outside. As they look into the store, they identify this colour traveling through. The same applies to texture, or other elements.
Other themes could feature a season or holiday, a product category, colour combination, an in-store event or promotion.
The theme, sometimes referred to as “the story the window tells”, determines materials, merchandise and signage to be used. The theme for jewellery, for example, could be the use of certain stones that may be used throughout the whole collection on display.
A window display should change its theme once a month or once every six weeks. Colours and textures really create the story, so it helps to alternate them. If using really bright colours for one story, the retailer might next time pare all the colour back and do something very neutral with completely contrasting textures.
To highlight some examples, I was recently in New York where I went around to all the high-end stores to see what they were doing to prop their jewellery, fashion and interiors.
Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue was running a fantastic campaign for Valentine’s Day, and it was something quite inexpensive to do. The store took a stack of playing cards and displayed them in the window in a fancy, fanned-out way. It’s not necessary to display the cards in this fashion; it’s just about finding interesting props and playing around with them. Tiffany & Co. used a red theme, and finished with a slogan in fancy lettering that read “game of love”.
The display didn’t use too much jewellery, just a hanging necklace with a ring above it. Despite this, the window was really eye-catching and confronting. This also highlights another way for retailers to select their window themes. If one doesn’t want to do regular visual merchandising, they can select certain holidays or events to do a really special promotion.
Another example of a great window display was in Dinosaur Designs in Sydney. The display utilised pieces of broken ceramic, like broken plates. It gave the jewellery in the window a real lift because it drew interest.
Dinosaur Designs also did really interesting groupings in their windows featuring many interesting colours. Following this, one could effectively keep the ceramic in the window as the base prop, then simply swap the product each week – all gold one week, all silver the next, for example. It’s just about keeping the prop in place and replacing the product.
Places like Reverse Garbage (www.reversegarbage.org.au) have all kinds of potential props at cheap prices. Another great place to source props for jewellery displays is the Salvation Army or St Vincent de Paul. Dollar stores are also full of items one can use to create displays.
Retailers could use the beginning of the new season as inspiration for their next window display. They can start by doing an initial concept sketch, then source the materials for it.
Inspiration and ideas can be garnered by visiting the aforementioned stores and looking around, asking, “What could I do for the metallic story? What could I do for the coloured stone story? How will the window’s theme be presented?” Just look at the materials and figure out where to go from there.
Other ideas can be found in other retail stores, magazines, books and online. Keep ideas achievable, and try to incorporate new social trends. Technology for example, is a big social trend. To reflect this in a window display, the retailer could visit Reverse Garbage and find a heap of old keyboards. They could knock-out the keys, forming a cluster of them in the window, and planting some jewellery in amongst them.
Visual merchandising
Once they’ve determined their theme or story, retailers must select the products they wish to display. Before doing so, it helps to consider the seven basic principles of design to gain a better understanding of window displays:
Balance
Balance refers to the positioning of all products – the positive space in relation to blank (negative) space. The product is in the centre and the negative space surrounds it. The positive space is where the product and propping happens, and this space becomes the focus. Both positive and negative space are important – they work together to draw the eye to the product and create the visual impact. All units within the grouping must be tied together.
Just spreading a whole lot of products out in the window doesn’t really draw the eye and bring a focus point, so that’s something to avoid.
There are two forms of balance to consider in window display designs: Symmetrical, or formal; and asymmetrical, or informal.
Formal balance exists when one side of the display mirrors the other. There is only one focal point, often located near the optical centre or near the base of the display. Formal balance is pleasing to the eye, but is static and predictable.
Informal balance occurs when the two sides of the display have dissimilar elements. For example, a large, heavy object to one side can be balanced by several smaller, lighter objects on the other side. The informal method is more interesting to the eye and is less predictable.
Unity
The purpose of unity is to increase sales of products and services. This is achieved if all elements of design are organised or integrated into a complete design to make a single impression. The elements must be arranged so that the eye moves naturally from one element to another and the whole display appears as one unit.
Proportion and scale
Proportion is the size of elements in the display, how they relate to each other and the overall look. Retailers must be careful to not only consider the size of merchandise and props, but also the size of the display area. If the store has a huge window, and the retailer displays a pair of stud earrings, the jewellery will be lost. Instead, create a focal point with lots of little studs, then balance this with larger pieces.
Rhythm
A good composition should have rhythm, which can either be self-contained movement or a natural eye-flow from element to element. Movement within a display can be created using one of the following aspects: repetition, gradation or radiation.
Dominance
In every display, it is advisable that some elements be dominant. There should be some object or part of the display that uses colour or position and attracts the eye first, directing the viewer to other parts of the display.
Harmony
Harmony is the compatibility of various elements within the display. Each of the elements must compliment and coordinate with each other – either by shape, colour, size or texture. When harmony is present, the theme of the display is easily apparent and pleasing to the eye.
Contrast
This refers to the combination of size, shape, colour and texture elements within the display. The combination or contrast of these elements creates variety and excitement.
So that’s it – the seven basic principles of design and how they can be applied to window displays. To be really safe, retailers can build a display prototype with some cheaper materials and put it all together to see how it would look before putting it into the actual window. Once their display is complete, the retailer should step back and have a look. The window should exhibit all of the seven principles of design, but remember that there are no hard-and-fast rules. Often a good design is detected by a gut feeling.
Natalie Coulter is the director of design consultancy Desource and visual merchandising and styling lecturer at TAFE’s Ultimo College. See www.desource.com.au for more info.