For many years I would walk down Fifth Avenue and get stopped in my tracks by the remarkable characters dressed or undressed in the windows at Saks Fifth Avenue, the stunning juxtaposition of jewelry displays in Tiffany’s windows, the luxe shadow box displays of antique Faberge eggs at A La Vielle Russie.
Window dressing, like web design, does not require a degree. It is “part production, part fantasy, part art, part fashion” as described by Erin Cunningham in her quite fascinating Daily Beast article -> Tales of a Bergdorf Goodman Window Dresser.
But, for those of us in the web design business, there is something to learn from this little known, quasi show biz medium.
Reaching your target audience
“You have to do all sorts of things to make a stream of pedestrians into an audience. It’s extremely ephemeral. It’s very of the moment, ” notes Bergdorf’s resident window dresser.
How well we know about such things when it comes to designing a homepage that is a victim of instant technology and impatient behaviors. How little time we have to put on a show to grab people’s attention. But showtime we must have …
In our case, it must be design elements like fonts, colors, photos that tell a story or paint a concept. Our homepage show also must look bigger than it is even though we lack beautiful mannequins and real-time texture, fabric and objects.
Enter social media widgets such as a Twitter feed that can provide content from a respected source, an Instagram widget that can constantly be updated with whatever highlights your product and services in people’s lives, and a newsletter subscription box so that visitors know you’re an expert with a lot to say.
Remember the element of surprise
The magic of getting something for nothing keeps the attention span. Do this with a CTA button and a free download of inside information for your audience.
And tell a story.
Now even your content can have the WOW factor because of the latest web design trend called parallax scrolling. This involves the background moving at a slower rate to the foreground, creating a 3D effect as you scroll down the page and giving you a simple vertical design for easy visual eye movement and flow.
Check out the new Parallax Pro Theme by Studio Press to see what I mean.
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia, Genesis WordPress Web Designer, at 561.906.3436.
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