AR and customer experience: Fountainhead Gallery

We are revisiting our Augmented Reality and Customer Experience series to explore how AR can impact selecting artwork for purchase. Seattle’s Fountainhead Gallery has partnered with Art Storefronts to offer live previews of how the artwork on their website will look in your home.

Art Storefronts’ AR tool works seamlessly through the Fountainhead Gallery website without requiring the user to download a separate app. For proper scaling, it suggests standing 10 feet from the wall the user is previewing the art piece on. The crisp image allows users to see how the size, color, and overall aesthetic of the artwork would look in their space. Most helpful about this feature may be the size component, as it is difficult to determine the size of each piece of art from the website image alone. Some are much smaller or larger than originally appear once placed with the AR tool. The experience differs from visiting a gallery by inserting the artwork into the user’s environment and previewing it within the existing space and colors.

Conclusion

Fountainhead Gallery’s use of the Art Storefront AR tool is just one more way augmented reality is helping consumers make informed decisions without seeing the physical object of interest. Allowing customers to virtually preview art in their homes decreases the chances of selecting a piece from a gallery that is the wrong size, color, or simply look for the space.

As the technology grows in popularity, additional art galleries are sure to take advantage of this method of reaching customers. While many will continue to prefer completing the purchase of artwork after physically viewing it, entering a gallery with a clear idea of how the size and color of favorite pieces will work within their space gives them an advantage in choosing the perfect piece—and the gallery an advantage in selling it.