How you display your work is a major factor in how well your work will sell.

Here is an extreme example: We’ll use a desk lamp for this illustration. Put the lamp on a table at a flea market, and then put the same lamp in a Niemen Marcus store. At the flea market you may not even be able to sell the lamp but at a Niemen Marcus it will be priced at 10 or 20 times as much and will most probably sell.

It all has to do with the surrounding environment and the display. There is the Niemen Marcus name and they will undoubtedly have a display that will make the lamp very appealing.

You don’t have the Niemen Marcus name but you can walk into one of their stores or in a similar high end store and see how they have the lamp displayed.

There is no reason for re-inventing the wheel. Businesses like Niemen Marcus spend millions of dollars to display their merchandise to its best advantage. Study how they do it, and then follow their example in your own displays.

I once heard an architect give a talk on color. She pointed out that McDonalds use the colors red and yellow. These colors, as she explained, have the effect of "fast".  In other words McDonalds want you to get your food, eat it and move on so the tables and booths are available for the next customers.

If a large businesses give this much attention to color schemes how many more tricks do they have up their sleeve to entice us to buy?

Look at displays and when your eye is drawn to a product, ask yourself why? It may be the product is something you‘d like to have or it may be the way the product is displayed.

Often times, as a craftsman relating to my own work I’m interested in the techniques that I used. The consumer doesn’t see the techniques, they see the piece in its entirety and their reaction is focused on "how it would look in my home or office".

The display idea runs across every sales venue where you plan to sell your work. The same holds true for a retail shop, arts and craft fairs and on your web site. These will all follow a different format, as in the retail shop you have room to exhibit a larger cross section of the types of work you do.

At an arts and craft show you need to have a compact booth that is easy to transport and still display your work to its best advantage. On your web site you’ll be limited to graphics, video and text. Since the person viewing your site can’t see the actual pieces or touch them your descriptions and photos must convey the style and quality of your work.

What you want is for the customer to be able to visualize having the work in their life. The perfect example here is jewelry. If a woman tries on a necklace or a pair of earrings and then looks at themselves in a mirror there is a good chance they are going to make the purchase.

For my wall sculptures I use a light beige background for display. Most people have light colored walls in their homes and offices. Beige in itself is a fairly neutral color which easily lets people visualize how the piece will look.

One of the most popular products I’ve ever developed is the Magic Wands. These appeal to people of all ages and both genders. They are priced right for buying for oneself or as gifts. The display for the Magic Wands is simplicity in itself.

Notice the photo on the right of the wand display.  I shot this photo of a young woman trying out the wands at an arts and crafts festival. 

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The above photo and description is displayed in a Plexiglas holder.  In just this brief presentation everything is there, the catchy name, (Magic Wands), what you can do with the wands, (blow bubbles) and the price.

I can only wish that more of my promotional material was this good. 

I started in a retail shop back in 1975 and began making plant butterflies. These are copper butterflies on a 1/16th inch rod that stick into the foam in a potted silk flower.

When the pot is full of butterflies they sell rapidly but when there are just two or three butterflies left those last few do not sell. It is like the almost empty potato chip rack. I want a bag of chips from a full rack. When the potato chip rack is almost empty it looks like leftovers or bags of potato chips that other didn’t want.

In the case of the butterflies, the few that are left look like the butterflies that nobody else wanted.

I constantly have to remind myself to view my displays from the consumer’s point of view.

As consumers, what do we want? Once we get past the necessities, we want things that enhance our life. When purchasing my metal sculptures people are wanting to enhance their homes. Something like, "buying this wall sculpture to put over the couch will bring warmth to my home". The question for us is, "how can we display our work so that the consumer sees it in a way that will enhance their life"? That’s what the top end stores do and it will increase our sales if we do the same.

Although it is a good idea to see what others are doing and emulate them when it feels right, it also wise to "think outside the box". Can we come up with a novel way to display our work? As an artist or craftsperson, you and I are creative people, creativity doesn’t stop with our work, but can be a part of everything that we do.

Like many artists and craftsperson’s I’m not particularly good at selling my own work. For this reason I rely on the quality of my work and displays.  When I made my living as a salesman I was always in the top two or three in the company, but selling one’s own work calls for "blowing one’s own horn". I’m not comfortable with this. This means that working out distinctive displays is doubly important for me.

Displays should be ever changing so that when someone returns in a month to your shop, sees you at the next show or returns to your web site, you can have a slightly different look, or maybe a completely different look. This is what the consumer is looking for when they buy a new painting, sculpture or piece of ceramics, they want a new look.

For me, one of the incentives to changing displays is boredom; bored at looking at the same displays whether it was in my shop, my websites or in my show displays.

Display Stand

Back in 1985 I was in Florida and asked a retired handyman if he would make a display stand for me.  I told him what I wanted and what he came up with is better than what I had in mind.

Now, don't laugh, this poor thing has been used and abused for almost thirty years.

Over time it has come apart but it still works and has served me well.  I have two of these - one for each end of the display table.

It incorporates two of my most important criteria for a traveling display:  1) It folds flat so that it takes very little room to store it in the truck.  2) For exhibiting it allows table sculptures to be displayed at different level for more eye appeal.

Laid out flat like this it's 50" x 14" in height.

Left to right the sections are 18" - 14" - 18"

Cover with Cloth

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