How to Make a Better Display
Picture By: Adrian Kawula
I don’t know about you, but I often find myself wondering about the way I organize things and take great care to make them display nicely. Nobody wants to display a mess or clutter for public viewing. This blog deals with exactly that; how to organize your display so that it is clean, organized and a pleasure to look at.
During my internship at the Mississauga Sports Council I learned many new and interesting things (I also had to teach myself some of these things as well). However, as part of my final project I have to prepare a display on Martial Arts in Mississauga. These are the tips and rules that I followed.
1. Don’t make your display too cluttered or too empty
It’s often good not to go to any of these extremes because then your display could look rushed, incoherent and look like it was done last minute. A perfect analogy of this would be the shelves in a store you don’t want to see them overflowing or disorganized because that implies laziness (they couldn’t clean it up) and poor planning (they couldn’t chose what to put so they put it all). On the other hand the person who is viewing the display can think laziness (the work wasn’t done at all) or could lose interest in the display because it shows nothing of interest. The main thing I am trying to transmit in this paragraph is moderation.
2. Gather more material than you will display
This is a really important step even before you put up your display (and yes I know I said these are tips for making your display look good not how you’re supposed to gather your material). The importance of this step is the fact that it gives you flexibility with what you will put in your display. If done correctly then you won’t run out of items to put in and you can start thinking of making a more advanced display by incorporating things like themes and subjects. Besides its better to have some stuff you won’t use then having a display look like it’s stitched together from elements that are completely unrelated.
3. Go the extra mile/Look at the details
You often get this piece of advice from everyone when doing a project or assignment, but it is really helpful to remember. Of course this doesn’t literally mean that you should take your project overboard (e.g. planning for a ten display case presentation when you only have three). It deals with paying attention to how small details can change the look of the project and make it look better. For example, during my display I thought about using regular paper for the labels and pictures, when it hit me that regular paper while fine on a school project wouldn’t exactly look professional on an actual public display(hence I switched to glossy (photographic) paper).
Most of all remember that it’s your display and you have creative control over what will end up being the final product. So be creative, enjoy your work and try to build a display that you would be proud of showing to others.