It’s been said that in music, the rests are as important as the notes.  The silence sets off the sound that precedes and follows the pause, giving it more importance.  While you wouldn’t want too many rests (I found a link to a list of 20 compositions made up of silence, which seems a bit extreme), there is no doubt that some pauses definitely enhance the musical experience.

In retail display, space is the visual equivalent to a rest.  It gives the eye a chance to focus on the product you wish to highlight, whether individually or in a grouping.  The fewer items and the greater the amount of space around them, the more weight the display gives to each piece of merchandise.

The display in the accompanying picture was taken on our recent trip to New York, where you often see shop windows like this that use at most a hemidemisemiquaver between products. (That’s the musical term for a sixty-fourth rest, in case you didn’t know.) The result is both fascinating and overwhelming at the same time — a bit like New York itself. 

Another place to pay attention to pauses is in your print advertising, where open areas are referred to as white space.  It’s tempting to try to fit as much as you can into an ad, given the cost per column inch in most publications.  But a page of print copy already has a lot of distractions.  You will find that you draw attention to your ad not so much by what you include, but by what you leave out. This ad by Toyota, for example, catches your eye right away because of its simplicity.

You want shoppers to pause long enough to look carefully, whether at your window display or at your print advertising.  The positive impression that they form will hopefully be reinforced when they step into your store and see your spacious and carefully edited merchandise displays, with enough space between the items to tempt shoppers to buy.

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder