Retail continues its fascinating metamorphosis from black-box to glass-box ideology. As a result, “brand-as-culture” is the new name of the game. Your customers want to be delighted as much by the ideas, causes, and lifestyle that your brand represents as they are by the products you offer.
The use of actual glass surfaces as a cornerstone of contemporary retail design (in storefronts, windows, walls, ceilings, doors, partitions, signage, etc.) is a fitting metaphor for the transparency modern and digitally-connected customers have into your inner workings.
What your customers see (or don’t see) through your store’s glass has a profound effect on how they feel about your brand identity. Entrepreneur.com even makes the point that windows are the #1 layout concern in successful retail design.
To attract the 21-35-year-old millennials that make up a sizable portion of your customer base, you’re going to need to make an effort to become the experiential retail environment they crave. Here are a few ways—with dynamic retail window display ideas and design—that you can use to delight your customers.
The Element of Surprise
Today’s buyers prefer experiences to possessions. When most of your shopping can be done online, the brick-and-mortar store must offer novelty and amusements you wouldn’t get from clicking buttons. Draw in foot traffic with surprising interactive experiences that begin on the street.
Dynamic windows that become frosted or clear when viewed from different angles with Vision Control Film have great imaginative potential. For example, a passerby could walk alongside a seemingly frosted glass storefront and then stop in their tracks as it suddenly reveals highlighted displays as they pass in front of them.
Isolating your displays in this way helps erase visual clutter and communicates to prospective consumers that each item in your window is luxurious, worthy of attention, and memorable. Surprises can lurk around any corner with unpredictable, changing glass surfaces.
Playing With Frost and Light
Frosted windows are a fantastic surface for projecting brand-relevant images or creating a shifting on-brand ambiance with the glow of modern smart LED lights. Rather than using more flat screen TVs, get creative and delight onlookers with the uniqueness of glass surfaces that act as the canvas for digital projections.
Are your brand colors orange and yellow? Imagine soft colors slowly morphing back and forth through frosted glass signage with your logo cut into it. Elsewhere, the gentle glow of a frosted glass display (illuminated from within) could slowly come into focus as you approach an ideal viewing spot and the glass grows transparent.
Eco-Conscious Ambience
If your store uses plenty of glass in its walls, ceiling, or storefront, you’ll get a lot of natural light. Use sunshine to achieve two goals at once: the comfort and warmth of a natural ambiance and less reliance on artificial energy. Modern consumers are an eco-minded lot that instinctively prefers sunny, open environments to the fluorescent-lit, cinder-block-walled stores of the past.
Dynamic window films can replace drapes, blinds, and shades to provide both a cocoon of privacy from the outside world and protection from glare-ridden times of day, while also making the most of the sunlight beaming into your store.
Share Your Ideas and Make Them Happen!
If any of these suggestions have sparked ingenious ideas for you, contact us at Lintec of America to discuss the possibilities and see how we can help you make them a reality.
