Painting With Light at Nordstrom

Can touch this.

Nordstrom recently put on a little lightshow for Seattle residents in the windows of its flagship store. Actually, it was the customers and pedestrians who put on the show, thanks to a little Kinect magic cooked by Nordstrom’s interactive development, visual merchandising and operations teams.

The idea came from the specialty retailer’s Spring 2011 designer campaign, created by photographer Glen Luchford and artist Ruben Toledo. The editorial features a ribbon of light running through the images (there are photos below).

For the store windows, Nordstrom figured out how to harness Microsoft Kinect’s infrared technology to allow people to “paint” messages in light by waving their hands across the window.

Nordstrom posted a sign urging people to “Please Do Touch the Glass.”

There’s more about the technology behind the magic, as well as other cool new developments in digital signage in our Retail Focus Special Section at ApparelNews.net.

Images from Nordstrom’s Spring 2011 designer campaign, created by

photographer Glen Luchford and artist Ruben Toledo

Nordstrom customers got to “paint” on the windows of the store’s flagship location in Seattle