Anatomy of a Display

October 2, 2014

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20141002-045350.jpg Yesterday was a full day of display, as so much new product is arriving daily that we have to tweak existing displays to make room for the new goods. It really is like working a puzzle. I thought this post could relate to how you display things on shelves in your own home. Retail stores provide tons of tips you can carry home with you and translate them into your own style and design.

The above shelf received a small re-do to incorporate a few new books that had arrived. My number one tip is when you begin, take everything off of a shelf so you have a blank canvas. Then you start building. Color plays a big part of how I build a display. In this case, it was clear glass, black, whites and browns. Then I start layering. All like items go together creating a collective whole. Not everything has to be in a straight line, so the glass jars of salt are doing a bit of a dance. The apothecary bottles of syrup are so bold and graphic, I like them lined up neatly and anchoring a side of the display. The new cookbooks would get propped up to add a little height on the other side. The wood salt & pepper wells adding a bit of earthiness. The clear glass butter dishes adding lightness and pulling together all the other glass in the display.

For the below blue and white display, color again became the prevailing theme. The little bits of yellow from the cover of the book pulling from the color of the glass jars above. This was mainly all new product, so I built the display around that. The new ‘Blue Willow’ goods all playing well together. Then it was just adding things from existing stock. Again, the glass butter dishes adding a lightness to it all. Glass is always a lovely addition to any shelf vignette you are working on. And then lastly, the lucite handled blue umbrellas. My biggest piece of display advice is it does not always have to make complete sense. If you like something on a shelf, leave it there. It should please you. This is the tail end of our umbrella stock from this last order and I just liked the way that they kind of did not make complete sense in the display. They are unexpected. Which to me ties it all together making complete sense.

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