Color swatches can teach you more than a complete shelf. By arranging three or four hues together on a flat surface, you can immediately see if the colors complement, clash, weigh too much, lighten, glow, or dim in visual merchandising. A color palette in visual merchandising is more than just pretty; it gives consumers the information to find matching products, identify what to view first, and assess the level of mood or excitement at eye level.
The most important thing to start with is to try to make a display of a small product line that only uses three dominant colors. A dominant color is the one that rules, the secondary color is the one that reinforces, and the accent color is one that pops. This doesn’t mean all your products must be of the exact same colors. This just means the color of the shelving or table display should clearly be intentional. For example, if the main product is a dark forest green, then lighter colors are ideal for the base because they allow the dark green to stand on its own, but don’t let it feel boring. A pop of a warmer color can be just enough to liven up the display, without getting too much attention.
The trickiest thing for novices to understand is how colors can work great individually, but poorly combined. An individual bright color box, a colorful prop, a colorful poster board, a colorful graphic print, a colorful sign, all of these can seem like good ideas by themselves, but if they’re all present on a display, there are too many options in your field of vision and it all feels overwhelming. Before you even think of bringing your products in, make sure your palette isn’t too busy. It will likely stay this way or be more overwhelming.
Colors can be used to highlight or call attention to the most important product without having to move or add it higher on the display or change the position of the rest of the items. A pale item in a darker room will stand out, and a bright red package can catch the eye immediately in a field of pale neutrals. This can be helpful if your goal is to highlight a product to start the product conversation, but it can backfire if you have your main color on a secondary product, price graphic, or prop, thus attracting the eye instead to the wrong part of your message.
Try seeing the color palette from a much further distance than you might need. Step back from the shelves and windows, look at the color palette, and don’t try to read the signage or the labels just focus on the overall color blocks. If it feels like the background color is taking the attention away from the products or the display graphics or signs are the loudest colors on the palette, consider reducing their importance in size, placing them lower and closer to the products they are meant to represent, etc.
Keep in mind that a limited palette doesn’t have to make your product line bland or plain. There are many other tools in visual merchandising you can use to make a palette look more interesting, like different textures, negative space, heights, or even the products that are being grouped together. If it’s a folded piece of fabric, a simple riser, a matte display cube, or a clean and clear price graphic, then they can all play a role as support, but should not overshadow the main product. The goal is to make the colors work, not make the color piles work as the display.
When your display is almost there but feels a bit off, try removing a color or an item before trying to add anything. Take a phone pic of the display from a shopper’s eye view, and compare it to how you had it last time. The question shouldn’t be how good does the color palette look by itself, but rather, did the products read faster as a group, did the focal point stand out more than the rest of the display and did the eye travel a more cohesive path through the display?