Salon display cabinet lighting: shelf pitch, glass and sightline

The cabinet is the piece of salon furniture that carries the retail margin, and it is specified in the opposite order to the way it is sold. The cabinet is chosen last: the products, the sightline and the lighting are decided first, and the cabinet is what is left when those three are written down.

Start from the sightline, not the cabinet

A client waiting at reception sees the cabinet from a seat, from the door and from the desk. Those three positions decide the height of the top shelf and the angle of the glass, and none of them is visible in a photograph taken at standing eye level.

Draw the three sightlines on the plan. Where the cabinet is seen from a seated position, the top shelf drops below the standing eye level so that the client is looking at product rather than at the underside of a shelf. Where it is seen from the door, the back panel is what reads first, so the back is worth finishing.

Shelf pitch decides what the cabinet can hold

Shelf pitch is the distance between one shelf and the next, and it decides whether the cabinet holds the range or a fraction of it. A pitch set for one product height will not take a box that is taller, and a shelf on an adjustable system can be re-pitched when the range changes without rebuilding the cabinet.

Depth matters as much as pitch. A shelf that is shallower than the product hides the back of it, and a shelf that is much deeper collects stock that no client can see. Draw the tallest and the deepest item on the shelf before the cabinet is built, because those two items set both numbers.

Glass: what the specification has to state

The glass in a retail cabinet is specified for three reasons: it has to be safe, it has to be clear, and it has to be cleanable. Each of the three is a line on the drawing rather than a preference expressed at delivery.

• Tempered or laminated, named on the drawing and on the delivery note.
• Edge work, because a polished edge is what stops a door chipping at the corner.
• The hinge and the stay, because a door that swings past ninety degrees hits the wall.
• The gap at the door, which decides how much dust reaches the shelf behind it.
• The lock, which side it is on and how the key reaches it.

The LED route and the heat it brings

A lit cabinet is lit from the top, from the back or from the shelf edge, and the choice decides both the look and the service access. A top strip washes the front of the top shelf and leaves the bottom in shadow. A shelf edge strip lights what sits directly below it and shows the shelf above as a bright line. Neither is wrong, but each one has to be drawn against the shelf pitch.

Heat is the part that gets forgotten. A strip inside a closed cabinet raises the temperature behind the glass, and a closed cabinet with no air movement is a place where cosmetics and adhesives age faster than they do on an open shelf. Ask where the driver sits and how the heat leaves the carcass, and put both on the drawing.

Lock side, wall fixing and the five checks

The last five decisions are the ones a drawing can answer and a delivery cannot. Each one is cheap before production and awkward after it, which is why they belong on the approval drawing rather than in a conversation.

What to send with the enquiry

A display cabinet is quoted from a drawing, and the drawing is only as good as what arrives with the enquiry.

• The wall length and height, measured at both ends and in the middle.
• The product range, with the tallest and the deepest item named.
• The sightlines, or the seat, door and desk positions marked on a plan.
• Whether the cabinet is lit, and where the power can be taken from.
• The wall build up, since a cabinet on a stud wall needs the studs marked.

This page describes how a display cabinet is specified rather than what one measures. Shelf pitch, glass and the LED route are confirmed on the data sheet and at quotation, because they change with the range the cabinet has to hold.