Jasper Morrison on Vitra

Monthly Jasper Morrison shows on Vitra Website one of his pictures writing down smart and cute reflections about it. Unmissable. Goooood Jasper! Here one of those with his article:

Why go to the expense of buying an expensive shop display system when you can make one yourself? And in this case you don’t have to stack the products on the shelf or even remove them from their boxes. I suppose a certain skill is required to avoid slicing through the merchandise while cutting the window in the cardboard box, but with practice and the help of gravity it would get easier.

The question is, is the shop keeper lazy, or tricky, or is he both? Has he calulated that this device will help people to imagine he’s cheaper than anyone else, or is he so bored by the tiny profit each sale brings that he’s decided to visualise his frustration? Or is it his way of personalising what might otherwise be a rather ordinary local shop? Has he discovered that a help-yourself system like this one actually improves sales? Maybe the framing around each box of products does make them seem more spezial than the ones on the shelves below. Does it help us to know that the shop is in Barcelona, in a not so rich part of town?