A display begins with an idea, how you develop that idea will strengthen or weaken the display’s effectiveness. Regardless of what miniature display you are building, for a show, a sale or decoration, the effects can be enhanced by careful planning. The following steps will help you create a better effect regardless of what you intend to showcase.
Showcase your ideas, not your possessions. Displays are most effective if you draw in the viewer and engage their imagination through a theme, instead of presenting an artistic group. To draw in your viewer and give your display extra punch, follow the following steps:
Here's How:
Choose a theme. What is the general purpose of your display, is it to celebrate the season, a time period, an event? To strengthen your display, keep your theme active, not cabins in general but a particular cabin, with particular people inhabiting it during a particular time. Not Dickens Christmas Village but The First Day of Christmas. For displays of a single item, say 1970's Barbie, the theme might focus on the wonderful accessories that were produced, or the particular prom dresses available, with a theme of the 1975 high school prom night.
Define a story line. Anyone can lay out a display of items, what unique story will your display use those items to represent? How will you engage your viewer to imagine themselves as part of the display, to put their imaginations into your scene, to want to be part of this collection? For the display for a Cabin Front Porch, the story line will be a day during a child’s summer at the cabin. For the First Day of Christmas it might be the giving of the first gifts, or the family dinner celebration.
List important details or questions that need to be showcased. Some will be essential for the scene/story to work. Here are examples of questions which are important for the concept of The Cabin Front Porch:
- How will you know it is a cabin, and not a permanent house?
- How will you show children as the focus?
- How will the viewer know these children feel free to explore their curiosity?
- Do adults interact with them or have activities of their own?
- Is this set in a particular time frame?
These questions need to be developed in order to get a true vignette of a particular story. Different answers produce different displays.
Begin a story board. A story board will help you develop your theme into a display. At the top, write the theme and story line along with further ideas that arose from your questions. Here is the story board start for The Cabin Front Porch
- Theme A Child's Unfettered Summer Explorations
- Storyline A child's memories of a busy summer day
- Feeling to Create Activity momentarily displaced by something new.
- Overall look Rustic items built by caring adults from local materials
- Location The front porch of a rustic cabin with a door and window to the inside, and links to outdoors.
- Secondary themes Security, adventure.
Get out your pencil and get started! Now you've read the steps above, start brainstorming your next display theme and story line. Brainstorm ideas, get a better sense of what you hope to show, and start answering questions about how you will do it. Remember to keep the concepts active and keep the actual display methods and items out of the process right now. That will be the next few steps to designing a miniature display!
Tips:
- Don't get too detailed, future issues (size of display space) etc. may change your final design when you get to that stage.
- Avoid focussing on particular items you want to display. Work with general themes some of those items might fit into.
- Write it down. Then when you get a great idea in the middle of the night you can add it to your plan.
