Window Display

New Visual Merchandising

Tony Morgan

• Publisher: Laurence King Publishing
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781780675541
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Retail Industry
• Index: Business

A showcase of the most exciting, innovative and successful window displays worldwide, with seven chapters covering key topics for the visual merchandiser, each with a gallery of photographs demonstrating how and why each window is successful. Colour is a great tool to promote a trend, Seasonal Windows exploit key shopping seasons, while following Trends, in fashion, food or homewares, and translating them quickly into a display is a key skill for a visual merchandiser. Graphics and Photography are cost-effective and efficient tools, or use Lighting to add drama, whether spotlighting products or flooding an entire window. Theatre shows off exuberant and avant-garde displays created to wow passers-by. Quirky windows allow free rein for wild ideas, with spectacular results. This book offers inspiration and guidance to visual merchandisers and retailers who need to create eye-catching window designs that will increase sales.

GRAPHICS + PHOTOGRAPHY

OF ALL OF OUR INVENTIONS FOR MASS COMMUNICATION, PICTURES STILL SPEAK THE MOST UNIVERSALLY UNDERSTOOD LANGUAGE.

WALT DISNEY

The last three decades since the arrival of adhesive vinyl, discussed below, have proved to retailers around the world the effectiveness of graphics, signage and photography as part of a window display. There is no doubt that talking to the customer with text is an effective way of communication. Technology has made incorporating graphics in a window display easier, so that it is now a cost-effective as well as efficient tool to deliver a message or to enlighten the customer. The most common use of signage within a window display is to inform the customer of a discounted offer or the price of an item, the location of the product they are viewing or to tell an interesting story about the brand or product. On most occasions it is a winning formula. However, the average customer has little time to study a window let alone read a script, so it is wise to keep the message short and to the point.

Since the invention of adhesive vinyl lettering in the 1980s, retailers have embraced the concept and applied this sticky colourful lettering to their windows. Previously, all signage was either handwritten or produced on a hot letterpress. Once adhesive vinyl was invented, it was not long before photographic images were also reproduced on vinyl. This creation, the decal, is used in most high-street windows around the world. It was used to particular effect by Asprey the jewellers, who applied a decal with a traditional-design etched-glass effect to their London flagship store’s Christmas windows (see Seasonal chapter, page 128). The vinyl design wrapped the complete window run and gave the impressions that each pane of glass had been replaced for the Christmas period only.

The most obvious and commonplace use of signage is during the sales. Twice a year, and sometimes mid-season, the windows of all the major high-street stores will surrender to the power of signage. Retailers use this ‘window’ of opportunity, when their customers have bargains in mind, to help those customers spend their money. Traditionally a store would overload their windows with as many products as they could in the hope that at least one piece of merchandise would appeal to someone. Today, promoting individual items is not as important – retailers rely heavily on announcing that the whole store is on sale. This retail psychology has the customer believing that everything in-store will be reduced (of course, they need to enter the store to find out). Harvey Nichols, London, adopted this method to entice customers across their threshold. They completely blocked out their entire window run with decals that simply stated ‘Sale’, demonstrating their customary creativity.

Today, many retailers rely on graphics not only to talk to their customers but as an integral part of the window scheme. Many windows incorporate words and photography that are not necessarily there to communicate a message but to form the window scheme itself. Saks Fifth Avenue recently suspended a set of images behind a mannequin, creating a three-dimensional backdrop that not only supported the mannequin but also reinforced the window’s theme. They also used text adhered to the glass to send a message to their customers. However, the visual merchandiser generally employs text and images as a secondary visual tool to enhance the window scheme; their main priority is to display the product effectively.

Unlike window signage, photography is a relatively new tool to become commonplace on the high street. Printemps in Paris created a stunning window scheme using large-scale photographs as a backdrop, each of the scenes depicting the interior of a room in a state of chaos. The elegant mannequins placed in front of them created a striking juxtaposition. In New York, Henri Bendel implemented a simple concept to promote their jewellery in an innovative scheme that saw famous Renaissance portraits ‘wearing’ a collection of the store’s earrings. This simple window display would have been very cost-effective, but was also highly creative.

Many of the images that the consumer sees every day (around half a million on average) are part of advertising campaigns. A retail advertising campaign will often be replicated in a window scheme and using the artwork in a window is an opportunity that retailers seldom overlook. Viktor & Rolf used their advertising effectively to promote the launch of their perfume in Selfridges, London, with a decal of the model used in the campaign featured as the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Colour
• Graphics + Photography
• Lighting + Technology
• Theatre
• Seasonal
• Quirky
• Trends
• Picture Credits