I have been thinking of doing a workshop or a talk about doing visual displays to help market your art work. I have been doing display work for over 20 years. I started at my parents antique shop and then work at a jewelry gallery for many years. The jewelry gallery is were I got my most creative ideas and allot of experience using creative props to enhance the jewelry. We would redo our display cases and the two front windows every Friday. After awhile people would check what we had come up with on there way to dinner or coming home from work. This made it quite the challenge to come up with unique and fabulous windows! It was allot of fun and hard work sometimes working into the evening.
The important things to keep in mind when creating a successful visual display are:
1) Choose a theme or feeling that you are trying to create. If you stick with things you love they will probably have a connection to your work automatically.
color, style, texture, Asian, vintage, etc.
2) Think out of the box! Anybody can buy the display forms out of a catalog. Your own unique look! Look in your local hardware store, fabric store, or in antique shops to name a few places to find unique display items.
3) Try to keep it simple and clean looking. Keep in mind that your work will add the interest and color, the displays are only to enhance and be a backdrop for the pieces.
4) Show your work at different heights and levels. This can be easily achieve by putting boxes under your fabric or table clothes. Another idea is to use cake stands to lift the work up.
5) I like to use repeated shapes & images to keep the theme flowing. Using your logo in many different places in your display, this a good way to brand yourself and make people remember your art work.
6) Keep in mind that your display must work for every different venue. Sometimes we don't even know the configuration of our both or space before hand so keep this in mind while designing your display.
7) Easy set up! The weight and the amount of time it takes to set up the visual up is a very important thing to consider as well. This is not as easy as it sounds, I'm still working out the kinks in mine.
8) Plan out your display on paper before investing allot of time and money in various items that don't work together. You can work out sizing and shapes so you can concentrate on buying just what you need.
9) You can save money by using things that weren't necessarily meant for display. Be inventive!
10) Have fun with it and get creative! This will show through in how amazing it turns out!
GOOD LUCK!
