Creativity on a Budget

Once in a blue moon, a retailer doesn't have to worry about store design and display budget. But has anyone seen a blue moon lately? Recently, I visited two stores that created great impressions with high creativity and low budgets. One was Palooza in Fairfield, Connecticut, and the other The Vermont Gift Barn in South Burlington, Vermont.

These stores have almost opposite styles: one is a tiny space carved out of the back of an art supply store; the other is a spacious, freestanding destination store. Palooza, owned by Carol Muraskiewicz, was originally the framing section of her husband's art supply store, a small space with a suspended plastic ceiling, tons of white slatwall, and odd-angled fabric-covered walls for displaying frames. Carol quickly turned the space around by covering most of the slatwall with lively fabric. She also stripped the floor of its ugly carpeting to find great woodwork that just needed a little waxing. Soon she became the sole distributor of McKenzie-Childs in the area, and used their merchandise to theme her store's colors and attitude.

The Vermont Gift Barn is graced by Lori Couture, a visual crackerjack who always looks for fun ways to display the store's selection of Vermont-only merchandise. Her space is large, with two sections connected by a gently sloping ramp. The store also has high ceilings and a barn-like interior, with lots of wood beams, columns and walls that complement the overall theme of the store. To keep it from being too brown and dull, Lori creates merchandise displays with strong color stories and good fixture angles that draw customers through the store without making them feel trapped in a maze of tables.