Create a time-line / checklist: This week copying and laminating - Next week: buy or beg materials - Two weeks: covering display boxes with matching paper - Three weeks: collect books matching the display....
Be careful with your fingers (blow - blow) the glue is very hot and you easily get blisters
Each object needs its own space. Think of a shop window that is more than full with appliances, you can’t distinguish one object from the other, while carefully placed objects attract the attention.
Pirates
Longhaired pirates on ancient sailingboats keep rousing the imagination. With their colourful clothes, one eye and hook, every adventurous boy wants to read about the wild life at sea. They would love to feel the parrot on their shoulder shouting dirty words while the wind is flapping the sails.
Making a display with those ingredients isn’t difficult.
What you need:
- display material like the hook, parrot, pirate flags, colourful fabric, netting
- copied (enlarged) images of pirates
- sand coloured paper with burned edges (or drenched in coffee (see comments)
- blu-tack/ tape/ stapler/ scissors/ guillotine/ ruler/ glue stick
What to do:
This pirate display was made with old and new material. The top part images were used in a previous year and stored in our display files. The bottom images are new and copied from our own pirate books. The gold coloured background was from a previous display (see: Olympic medal winners) but I changed the borders which changed the look totally and made it match with the pirate image colours.
I made new signs to encourage the students to read the books on the display stand. To match them with the images above and to give them that ancient adventurous look of secret papers found in an old chest, I burned the curling edges.
To emphasize the different pirate flags and to break with the usual pattern of three of the same panels on a row I pasted the V shape in the middle. It immediately attracts the eye.
The flags aren’t attached flat to the surface but bulging to make them look like waving in the wind (see: display tips) The staples are hardly visible because I used the pattern in the images to hide them and when it’s time to change the display the images can be easily removed from the background. Stored away in our display cabinet they can be used for another display in the future.
To view larger images of displays click on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gr8displays/
And.....Keep an open mind for unusual, funny or cartoon-like images in magazines, books and daily papers like the image above that was featured on the front page of Canvas magazine, Cut them out or copy them and store them for when you need inspiration. One unusual image can be the base for an imaginative display. You don't need to do all the hard work yourself.
You can hang little objects like birds, light bulbs, little books, art objects etc from the frame. Voile fabric draped over the frame will give it an extra elegance.... let your imagination run wild and try it out!