Christine Schwalm Design

The job of a visual merchandiser changes from day to day.  At it's core, the job is basically "make it pretty so people want to buy it."  Obviously, a lot more goes into it than that.  One of the best parts of what I do is getting to create room settings and vignettes.  I get some direction from corporate, but I often have to adapt their design to my space and product constraints.  For the next three months, my location will feature gallery quality artwork in the front display windows.

For my part, it meant prepping and painting the walls, selecting, arranging and hanging the art.  Since we were going for a "gallery" look, Benjamin Moore White Dove went up on the walls replacing the dark grey to create a neutral backdrop.  Ideally, I would have black leather benches under the pieces in the front window, but no such luck.  Fortunately, I had two clean lined black leather chairs to use instead.  I hung the art off center to balance it out.  The lesson to take away?  Don't get too caught up in having the exact item if you can still create the look with a suitable substitute. 

Overall, a really fun project that is a bit different from what I'm used to,  Instead of a room setting similar to what you'd find in a home, I was tasked to create more of a commercial space.  Hanging a $10,000 piece of artwork (as shown left) was a bit daunting, but I'm always up for a new challenge.