Shopfront Design, Buchanan Street

Category: Urban Design

Shopfront Design, Buchanan Street
You will see a shopfront on almost every Glasgow street. As you walk along, your eye is drawn to colourful posters, powerful graphics and bright lights. The dummies in the windows are carefully arranged to display clothes in the most attractive way, and desirable products are placed to tempt customers into the shop. You can see fashionable designer names everywhere you look. Shopping is big business, and in Buchanan Street, Glasgow's main shopping street, you can see how important it has become. This fine building used to be the offices of the Daily Record - now it houses a designer clothing store.

These powerful displays do not just happen by themselves. Window-dressers go to a lot of trouble to get the look just right, and find lots of new ways to catch your attention. This shop has used roses growing out of test tubes to draw attention to models wearing the latest clothes designs. The windows have been made as large as possible to allow the biggest and most eye-catching displays.

Can you imagine what the street would look like without any window displays ? It would certainly be a lot less colourful. There would be very little to look at on street level, perhaps just empty windows or plain walls. Things would be very different at night, too. Many shops have bright lights in their windows at night. It feels quite different walking down a street with only lamp-posts for illumination. Bright shops can give a sense of warmth and safety, and make the streets look more lively and welcoming. Imagine how different this shop would look if it had big metal shutters down and no lights on. The street would be a much less attractive place to walk .

Shops make their shopfronts as attractive as possible to draw in customers. This costs a lot of money and has a big effect on sales. But shopfronts also transform the street. Next time you go shopping, look carefully at the shopfronts. Notice the materials they are made of, the colours, and how they affect the feel of the street.