It is the question I am asked most and the one fewest people answer in public: how much does it cost to design a window display? Most studios reply «it depends» and ask you to write for a quote. I prefer to say it clearly, because a store needs to know how much it will invest before picking up the phone.
In this article I explain what you are really paying for when you commission a window design, what any serious job should include, and how much it costs at BARRONVISUAL, with our public prices.
Decorating a window is not the same as designing it
Before talking about prices, it helps to separate two things sold under the same name. Decorating a window means placing product and props so it looks nice. Designing it means deciding what it has to achieve (that people stop, understand what you sell and come in) and building every element for that goal: the idea, the composition, the colour, the light and the hero product.
That is why the prices you find online range from very cheap set-ups to jobs costing thousands. They are not selling the same thing. A cheap set-up solves one afternoon; a design with criteria leaves you a window that works and guidelines to repeat it.
What a window display design should include
If you are going to pay for a design, make sure the job includes at least this. It is what we include at every level:
- Visual research: reading the setting, the street, the brand, the product and the customer before proposing anything.
- Creative concept and moodboard: a guiding idea that gives the window meaning and coherence.
- Composition, product, colour and lighting: the decisions that lead the eye to what you want to sell.
- Installation proposal: a clear guide to build the window exactly as it was conceived.
- Execution criteria: guidelines to keep the level in future set-ups, without always depending on someone external.
If a quote includes neither research nor criteria for the future, you are probably buying decoration, not design.
