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As we move into spring, the white snow is subsiding, which leads us to the best season of all -- The White Sale Season. Those of you who follow my articles know that for me the most fascinating component of visual merchandising design and display is color.

Emerging Colors
A favorite movie of mine is "Pleasantville," which presents a dramatic point of view on color. Initially, a whole community only knew life in black and white until color began to affect their lives -- at that point, they started to experiment with life at the edge. It fascinates me to watch as color is added to this movie as much as it did to witness the color scenes appear in "The Wizard of Oz."
Over the last few months, we have explored the primary colors that comprise all of the colors and now we are going to examine the color white. As we have learned, color is actually reflected or refracted light. The color we see in an object is the reflection of color that is not absorbed by the object. All light is white in color. The colors of the rainbow are the refraction of light at different wavelengths passing through rain to create seven different colors. White is created when an object absorbs all light and no colors/light waves are reflected. Sir Isaac Newton did the earliest studies on color theory in the 1600's. The study of color goes in two fascinating directions -- how light affects color and how color affects people.
The interest in visualizing white hides in the shadows, textures, and subtle values that white objects create. White light can range anywhere from very bright to very dim -- and may almost approach black. The subtle value (lightness or darkness) becomes gray, a neutral value and for our article, a subcolor of white that we will discuss. The value of a color's textures and shadows can create a lighter or darker mood in the viewer. Adding gray to a color softens its personality. The more gray that is added, the duller the color becomes. Our eyes prefer bright, vivid colors. Dull colors are annoyingly vague and diffuse, but do reduce tension and lend color schemes a meditative, dreamlike mood. You can go too far, so try to use a vivid white to accent your white color scheme and lighten the mood.
Lighter shades of white look as soft as cotton candy or fleecy clouds. White evokes a sense of limitlessness and thereby creates a fairy-tale quality -- the fairy princess always wears white or a very, very light color. Pure white is always outstanding in any color scheme that strives to represent purity, virginity, innocence, or peace, but there is also the downside to white, as it conjures up images of hospitals, sterility, and cold winters. The dichotomy continues when you consider the formality of upscale white china versus the disposability of white paper plates. White is a very subjective color in the eyes of the beholder -- it can suggest expensiveness or cheapness. In the presence of many colors, white always appears pristine or innocent and holds importance -- for example, white letters are considered to be more important than colored ones. White opens up the surroundings and suggests airiness, rest, and liquidity. White objects become more solid when you add heavy texture and multiple shadows that reflect shapes within the objects. The millwork on Victorian-era houses was meant to be painted white so that the craftsmen's work in creating the shapes was appreciated.

Making White Shine
White objects in visual merchandising create positive and negative spaces and spawn relationships with the shadows. With no color to trick the eye or draw it in another direction, you are forced in visual merchandising to see the shapes that are created by the objects and the shapes that are created between the objects. An all-white display is the one time when the object and the interim space present equal value to the eye. You should approach an all-white display with a different focus. It needs to create a strong awareness about the textures, shadows, and shapes that are usually secondary to color in display. The lights, darks, and shades of gray that are created become the colors of the display. White displays are a good place to become educated about texture -- the hardest component of display to grasp. What textures do you use to create an effect of heaviness, largeness, outdoorsiness, organic, or industrial? Architects use texture a lot when they're creating a look for a building. Think of an all-white or gray building made of steel, glass, stone, block, concrete, or wood. That image of how those materials affect the building's appearance will help you understand how those textures affect your display -- for instance, the sense of glass on the ground floor versus the top floor with concrete above or below it.
This month's display is virtually all white and requires some study to get a feel for what the eye is seeing and enjoying or appreciating. You may want to go back to past columns and judge the displays with a new eye that discards the colors. The backdrop of this display is white paper. The first exercise is to imagine how the display would be appear if all of the objects were the same color and texture as the background and how you would view the objects. Next, focus on the colors/grays created in each object by the variations in texture. Concentrate on whether you are looking at the texture's hard surface or the shapes in between. How much does shadow affect what you see? A trick I use to see just the objects and shadows is to squint. When you squint, you see just the lights and darks and remarkably, you react differently to what you are seeing. You can see which object is visually moving to the forefront. What negative space in between has become so visually dominant that it has gained as much importance as an object? Notice how the vertical and horizontal spaces are affected by light and the direction from which it emanates. This exercise in displaying white is very educational in driving home features about displays that aren't possible when other colors are present.
Good luck.

Renee Chappelle of Marketing Projects Unlimited is a retail consultant who specializes in store design and visual merchandising. You may contact her with inquiries at mpu@humboldt1.com or voice, 707-442-0276; fax, 707-442-1689. Products supplied by: Pacific Flavors, Eureka, Calif. Photographer: Robin Robin, Eureka, Calif.