Housed within the Natural History Museum here in London are the most incredible collection of natural forms such as these. Very often, within a Commercial context we see these kind of formations used to display small products such as jewellery. (I must say here that I am quite tired of seeing this personally). It is understandable, I suppose for a small independent retailer which undoubtedly will not have huge budgets to lavish on developing a new scheme every few weeks as the seasons, products, events and so on change, however much larger and established retailers also tend to follow this route. What I encourage my students to do is to look at these objects purely as the initial starting point from which to develop a concept rather than these becoming the concept itself - otherwise there is no concept. Ideas can literally spark from studying natural forms if one is willing to view them openly, and identifying shape, form, content, colour etc. from which to draw inspiration providing a much richer experience for the shopper and pushing the boundaries of our current understanding of what Visual Merchandising is or can become.
