New Vision Studios 9/11 story by Sandy Driesen

Joe Weishar, my late husband and founder of New Vision Studios*, was working with the Soysal organization in Istanbul, Turkey, to plan their first retail conference. Since Joe has made presentations all over the world and is an expert on visual merchandising, it was his job to organize important speakers from the USA to participate in the conference that was scheduled for October 2001. However, 9/11 happened, and most of the speakers had to cancel their trips, as their companies didn’t want them to fly. The conference was in jeopardy, and the president of Soysal asked Joe to make a slide presentation on New York City retail after 9/11.

Joe and I went all over the city, camera in hand, and took pictures of store windows, now displaying very patriotic windows, flags flying all over. We had slides of the Twin Towers, plus so many very poignant displays of patriotism and NYC after 9/11. My job was to put music to the slide presentation. I had a lot of great New York City music to choose from.

Joe decided to get “I LOVE NY More Than Ever” buttons for the conference, and since he knew Milton Glaser and his company, Pushpin Studios, we went to Glaser’s studio on East 32nd Street to ask permission to produce 1,200 buttons for this conference. Milton Glaser was very cordial and said, “Yes, of course. Everyone has used my designs, so go ahead.” We brought 1,200 buttons to Turkey.

After this heart-rending slide presentation, where the last song was, “New York, New York,” I was tearing up—and so was the audience. It was an emotional presentation, and to see all those Turkish people wearing the “I LOVE NY More Than Ever” buttons was quite a sight.

*New Vision Studios was founded by Joe Weishar in the 1960s. His business card was done by Pushpin Studios (Milton Glaser’s company). Joe was originally a set designer for theater, TV, movies, etc. He then segued from set designer to retail store design. Joe wrote two books on Visual Merchandising. 

Stores are similar to set designs, using lighting and all of their visual aspects. The customer has a pre-conceived idea when entering a discount store—the lighting is very bright, there are racks and racks of merchandise, and you immediately get the sense of a lower price range. In contrast, when you go into a designer shop on Madison Avenue, there are very few items on display, the lighting is subdued, etc. Of course, you know that the prices are going to be very high.  

Joe worked for Ralph Lauren, as well as Kmart. His theory was to have people walk through the store as much as possible and guide them to the back wall where the principle items were featured. “The more customers walk through the store, the more they see, and the more they buy.” Joe studied people’s habits when they entered the store; most walk to the right. The fixtures were placed at 45 degree angles and the MERCHANDISE was key. Where to put the cash/wrap was also important. Joe also developed “interrupted patterns” making people see what you wanted them to see. For example, if the merchandise is all one color, and there’s one item that’s different, your eye sees the different color first. It’s really scientific. 

Joe photographed (slides) of retail stores all over the world. New York City is the mecca for creative displays, and we therefore gave tours to industries and retail companies. Joe also produced slide shows and was hired to make presentations to many countries: USA, Japan, India, South America, Europe, Turkey, Kuwait, etc. Joe was the Master of Visual Merchandising. 

Joe retired in 2010—very timely—because slides were not being used anymore, and Joe was not about to digitize thousands of slides.  

P. S. I loved being a part of this wonderful chapter of Joe’s life.  It was so creative and exciting. The traveling was so great!