vienna

habit and connects them with the need for the unexpected and the accidental,
for difference and transgression.” 355
This incidentally summarises the condition of the seasonal sale window
as well. A huge shoe store is our next stop:
The show windows guide the customers into the store. The entrance is set back
into the building so that the window´s display surface is enlarged. One single
poster covers a large part of the window’s surface. The upper part of the poster is
red with “STARK Reduziert” written on it in white letters. 356 The remaining square
surface is yellow. Three red arrows point downwards. The posters are hung in two
horizontal stripes. The posters hang flush against each other in the upper row so
that we cannot see what is behind them. In the lower row, however, only every
second poster is hung which is why we can see some shoes inside Posters cover
up the other half.
The arrow is an old sign with a long history that goes back to the birth of
humankind. Adrian Frutiger describes the archaic connotations of the sign:
“ The arrow sign is taken in two stages: as the flying weapon with the arrival of
the wounding point and the barbs holding it into the flesh.” 357
The arrow is not just indicative of the downward direction of price; it is
also an archaic weapon capable of killing the commodity on a symbolic level.
Though the sign is abstract, it can in the same moment also contain an intuitive
dramatic aspect that draws us back into ancient times where animals were
sacrificed with the ritual weapon. The rival shoe shop across the street uses a
less intuitive visual language:
The façade of this shop is full of question marks, black and white ones. This forest
of question marks is interspersed with vertical strips of striped white and red
ribbons. Piles of shoeboxes fill the interior of the store. One unpacked model lies
on each of the piles. The whole shop is a veritable mess signified by the question
marks overlaying the scenario.
This shop is an instructive example of ambiguous visual design strategies.
Using the signs of today, it creates an intuitive image of archaic beauty. What
Hans Hollein pointed out in architecture can be applied to the store window as
well. Since design moves between the poles of rational function and the ritual,
355 Mendini (1988:7).
356 “Big reductions“.
357 Frutiger (1989:49).
The
Death
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Fashion 143