Choosing the Right Artwork for Restaurants
Finding the right decor for your restaurant can be almost as important as the menu. Adding some artwork can really bring the place together and give it that extra bit of wow factor.
While it is your choice, there may be some pieces that don’t work very well. You want your restaurant to do well and look good, so putting some thought or research into the artwork you choose can make a big difference.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Sourcing Artwork For Your Restaurant
One of the biggest questions any restauranteur will have is "how do I find the right artwork?" Typically, your interior designer should be sourcing the artwork from local stores, or better yet, local artists. Some of that is covered below. Aside from this, depending on how high end your restaurant is, you may want to use an art buyer who can source original fine art for your restaurant. This can not only elevate the feel of the restaurant but will give your patrons another unique feature to tell their friends about.
Color Theme
You don’t need to be a fine dining place to take a bit of pride in the decor and artwork. Finding a few nice pieces that accentuate your color theme can really bring out certain aspects of your wallpaper, your upholstery or even your dishes and even uniforms.
Try to find artwork that is going to highlight the lest dominant color in your place. If you have blue upholstery, say, with small accents in another color, find artwork that will highlight the lesser colors.
Food Themes
Artistically drawn or painted pictures of food that you serve or reasonable likeness is abstract can encourage people to order those items. If you are an Italian place, have interesting and even actual pictures of your food. People do it all the time, anyhow.
You could also have paintings of wine, cheese, wheat fields, fruit and vegetables. It’s a nice way to advertise your menu and still have interesting pieces of artwork on display.
If tomato sauce is a major item you use, there are plenty of ways you could use tomatoes, the color red and pictures of prepared food to display your menu and still make the artwork, work.
Locations
It’s also nice to have landscapes or pictures of certain locations or historical sites for your artwork. A Chinese food place can have pictures of the region the food originates or a Mediterranian place could have olive trees, locations in exotic locations and images of white buildings and the sea.
Even older pictures of what your building used to be, how the street looked when the city was first built and other historical pictures of the neighborhood are always interesting to locals and newcomers, alike.
Artist Theme
If you have an Italian restaurant, images of Italy or prints from the old masters can really add a nice bit of class and sophistication to your room. You can find prints for a very reasonable price and they would definitely add to the decor and theme.
Your Own Theme
If you are a sports pub or casual restaurant, you can get fun or funny artwork to fit the theme you have going. Pictures of local sports figures, sports memorabilia, jerseys, baseball cards, or artifacts that add to the flavor of the place.
Maybe your restaurant boasts ‘home cooking’. Pictures of family dinners, a Norman Rockwell-type of artwork or even a collection you may have that was done by your own family.
Support Local Artists
Many restaurants rotate their artwork by allowing local artists to display their own work for a limited time. It’s a great way to get free artwork, get people interested in their local artists, and help out someone who could likely really use it.
Rotating the artwork, say every month is also interesting to your regular customers and they will often come back just to see what’s new. It can give them a great opportunity to showcase their work and give you an ever-changing decor.
Things to Avoid
While it is up to you, using artwork that has overly heavy religious themes, war depictions, and other acts of violence are not often recommended. You honestly never know what might set people off or offend them.
Pictures that show animals can be nice but not if they are actually offered on the menu. People often find this upsetting. You also would likely want to avoid cutesy pictures of kittens or puppies. They are fun but better suited for a place for children, not a restaurant.
Pictures that show gore, blood, and other acts that are of a violent nature should also be avoided. People want to see nice images and while they are not there for the artwork, you do not want to put them off their meals with upsetting images.
Artwork Matters
Of course, whatever you decide to do is up to you. Just have fun with it and be aware people will get offended and want to express an opinion, even where it isn’t needed.
How Artwork Influences Purchase Decisions
Art has been successfully used to influence emotions and minds for centuries. Visual expression of all types has the ability to impact how we think. Whether you’re visiting a museum or simply staring at an advertisement, art can be a powerful tool in shaping desire.
The Role of Art in Business
The role of art extends itself across all different businesses. From high priced original paintings to the pop art of Andy Warhol’s generation, the power of visual interpretation can be found in offices and grocery stores alike.
One of the most obvious areas in business depicting art’s impact on consumerism is advertising. By using several different visual techniques, art can shape the importance of a product in anyone’s life.
How Does Art Impact Consumerism?
Color, lines, and the suggestion of something unobtainable have all been known to create human want and desire. Since consumerism is based around making people want what somebody else has, art is highly valuable in the process.
What is Color Psychology?
Color psychology is the study of different hues and how they influence human behavior. One study found that people in management positions can effectively use color to increase or decrease appetite. Researchers also found that approximately 90% of immediate judgments made about services or products can potentially be based exclusively on color.
Using color to create emotion may seem straight forward. In some fast-food restaurants, specific colors are used with the intention of getting their customers in and out as fast as possible. Although yellow may make some people happy, it doesn’t necessarily make all people feel happy. Depending on the culture, people in other countries may feel differently about art when it is used for business or marketing.
The Power of Suggestion
Shapes and lines are used just as much as color to sway consumers. In addition to print advertising and paintings, furniture has shaped how we feel about a room or even the people in it. The amount of space given to an area can make somebody feel more or less comfortable.
Office decor has become a lucrative business for interior designers. Every detail inside a room can create a larger story. Conducting a meeting in a room with sloping lounge chairs and floral curtains may have a different feel to it than one with a marble conference table or several mahogany bookcases. Depending on the goals of the individual business, the design of its overall look can greatly impact its success.
Texturing Art
The texture of a piece of art can tell us what to identify with. For instance, car advertisements may depict a different kind of ride when using printed photographs or illustrations. A rocky terrain may suggest what type of driver would choose a Jeep over the smooth road of a luxury convertible. Subtle differences in landscape can project a desired personality into the subconscious.
How Does Art Impact the Corporate World?
The design and artwork in a workplace have the ability to calm employees with stressful jobs. Many workplaces that require a high amount of concentration for long periods of time can feel dreary or tense. By using art in the right way, employees can actually feel more relaxed while working throughout the day.
Paintings of nature scenes can actually lower levels of anger when used in certain settings. For places of business that have a high rate of turnover, art can lead to better work performance, calmer employees, and a less hostile environment.
On a social level, art can spark discussions among colleagues. Art does not have to be controversial to be provocative. Many people feel intense emotions after seeing shapes and colors that don’t necessarily represent a concrete object or landscape. By bonding over the feelings that art can represent, people are more likely to feel closer to one another.
Corporate art buyers often specialize in finding artwork for specific types of environments. In this way, they can match the right tone and mood to what the owner of the space wants to convey.
How to Choose the Right Art
Art is as versatile as personality. Depending on the type of business, art can influence people in a variety of different ways. There is no wrong way to create, buy, or share art, however, the setting does matter.
For highly intense settings, artwork that shows people performing caring acts for each other can actually reduce angry responses. Impressionist paintings are frequently used for their calming effect. Branding, on the other hand, usually requires bright and bold colors that are used to excite the brain rather than relax.
Art has been specifically designed and chosen to sway the emotions of others. This can be a calculated decision based on the artist’s goals or it can come from a deeper subconscious part of the brain. By mixing the two together, an artist spends his time in both business and psychology.
What Does an Art Consultant do?
Some people buy art simply because they like it. Others buy art because they are collectors, or they may want a piece because it’s is done by a famous artist. Some people buy art as an investment.
An art consultant, like a consultant in any other field, is someone who advises you on art. They have education, knowledge appreciation for art and they also may help or conduct the transaction of buying art for you.
Where Do They Work?
Hiring an art consultant is hiring someone who can educate you on art. They help individuals and corporations alike. A good art consultant will know about the masters, what artwork of theirs may be coming up for sale and how much the piece is expected to sell for.
They also know all about new artists, who to keep an eye on, who is making waves in the art scene and whether they are worth the investment. Someone new in the art scene may be getting a lot of attention. When that happens, there is a rush to buy their work.
The consultant will know where to get these sought-after pieces. They may attend auctions, go to gallery openings or know the artists personally. They can help you negotiate the transaction for a piece of art you want.
Individuals and Groups
Art consults also work for bigger companies and corporations. Perhaps they are commissioned to find some interesting artwork for a new law firm or a hospital. They will be able to make sure the pieces are within their budget, appropriate for the setting and to make sure it is going to be a worthwhile investment.
Someone might prefer the old Dutch masters, or maybe they like a newer contemporary artist. The consultant goes out ahead to make arrangements for meetings, showings and negotiations.
Vast Knowledge
Art consultants will have a minimum of a bachelor of arts degree. Couple that with daily learning about art, artists and the world of art, they can tell you everything you need to know, and somethings you didn’t.
There is also a strong liaison relationship with the consultant, the buyer, and the artists or the gallery, or both. Often, established buyers have exclusive access to certain works, as consultants help buyers establish them in the art community.
It can be very difficult for individuals or a group to purchase art pieces that are highly desirable. Many galleries may only sell to people they already know, someone connected to the consultant or a high profile buyer, like a celebrity of some kind.
Hiring a Consultant
If you are new to buying art or art collection, you need to talk to a consultant. You can’t just go into a gallery and buy something off the wall that you like. That may be the case in some smaller, local galleries, but almost always, there will be a consultant involved to make the transaction go smoothly.
They get paid by receiving a regular fee if they are someone you often use or they get a percentage of the sale of the artwork. They do the bidding at auctions, meet the artists for you and offer sound advice on those artists and they can introduce you to other people who work in the market.
When a consultant buys the artwork for you, they are often offered a small discount from the gallery. So, in essence, you are not paying them for their consultation. They sell you the art for the asking price and receive their payment that way. You don’t actually pay more for art when you buy through a consultant.
Whether you are buying one piece or looking to buy several pieces, the consultant will do all the work for you. They know where to go, how to find great work within your budget and who to talk to about it.
The Consultant Works for You
When you hire a consultant for advice or buying art, they are looking for the pieces that suit your tastes and needs, not theirs. Because they know so much about art, they are able to remove themselves from whether they personally like it or not and find what you are looking for.
They look at your space and ask about what types of works you want. You can go to galleries together and let them know the style, colors and themes you like best. They will use that information to find you the best pieces within your budget.
