How to Keep Vendor Booth from Feeling Cluttered

Related to my earlier post about how to make a booth more appealing with the three-second rule, let’s explore a related concept.

In addition to the three-second rule, where customers make a judgment about your booth in just a few seconds, you also want to consider how our brain fills in all of the gaps that our eyes see. This is a concept I learned early in both my art and marketing studies.

When we look at something, our brain naturally fills in more than what we see at a subconscious level. This is okay when things are very UNcluttered because it helps us focus on the key items in front of us without feeling overwhelmed.

However, the more things we add for our eyes to see, the more our brain has to process.

Imagine adding a lot of different colors, shapes, or objects all together—it can quickly become mentally cluttered. And when it becomes too cluttered, it’s easy for customers to feel overwhelmed, making it less likely that they’ll focus on individual items or make a purchase and more likely for their brain to do a mental “nope” and walk right past.

For example, if you have a display of 20 candles and each one is a different size, shape, and color, it’s much harder for the customer to mentally process. But if those 20 candles are the same or very similar (such as a group of all the same size or shape, or different sizes or shapes but all the same color), it’s easier for the brain to recognize them as a group, making the booth feel more organized and inviting, limiting the mental overwhelm.

This concept is especially important for booths where space is limited. By carefully choosing what to display and creating space around key items, you give customers room to subconsciously breathe and focus on your products. A less cluttered display allows your most important or best-selling items to really stand out (especially if done in a way that helps people quickly visually understand what you sell, from the prior post).

So try to step back and look at your booth from a customer’s point of view.