Visual Merchandising and Store Design | VMSD.com

Still rooted in craft, visual merchandising is employing strong colors, creative brand statements and technology to catch shoppers' attention.

By Anne DiNardo

With the steady popularity of online shopping and consumers’ continued wariness to spend money, most visual merchandisers think now’s really time to up the ante.

“It’s more important than ever to step out of the box,” says Paul Olszewski, Macy’s director of windows (New York). “You want to get people to come inside the store.”

Creating a draw for Macy’s Herald Square, Olszewski has used everything from oversized flamingos and elaborate flower displays to art installations inside his flagship windows.

For Ana Fernandes, creative design manager at Toronto’s The Bay department store, that means regularly changing up her windows and displays in a dramatic fashion, going from bold colors and eclectic propping one month to cleaner and monochromatic the next. “I need to give shoppers something different,” she says. “So the customer realizes there’s a big change.”

And those pushing the envelope with cutting edge and creative visual displays and windows are not only catching customers’ attention, but also the eyes of judges in VMSD’s 2010 International Visual Competition. “There’s a polarity in visual right now, between those taking a chance and those playing it safe,” says judge Christian Davies, executive creative director, Americas, Fitch (Columbus, Ohio). “We were drawn to things that were different.”

Simply Remarkable
And what visual trends are making that difference? For one, there’s a continued emphasis on the craft of visual merchandising using everyday materials. “But in remarkable ways,” says Davies.

For Macy’s Herald Square flagship, Olszewski created an entire fashion window campaign using colored pieces and rolls of paper. Since this particular campaign wasn’t tied to a specific marketing initiative, Olszewski says he didn’t receive any extra money toward his visual budget, which “forces us to be creative.”

So he started playing with paper, pulling colors from the clothing on display. His staff then precut thousands of shingles of paper, which filled countless garbage bags that were trucked from the 7th floor workroom to the ground-floor windows. Olszewski says he traced a rough pattern on the wall where the pieces would hang and marked where the colors would blend. Then he and his team started “stapling away.”

The end result: a layered, artistic installation that perfectly enhances the fashion-adorned mannequins standing in front.