The window artists beautifying High Street shops

Small businesses have a lot to contend with these days – not least standing out from the crowd and drawing customers in. Some of them are increasingly turning to window art to beautify their shopfronts and lure us in for a closer look. Who’s behind these beautiful creations – and is it really boosting business?

Wearing a pair of headphones and paint-splattered clothes, the woman in the window is concentrating hard. She might be focussed on creating a snowy Victorian street scene, or an incredibly detailed polar bear, or cosy Alpine log cabins for Christmas – but the twist is, she’s doing it all backwards.

The artist, Juliet Townsend, has been travelling all over her native Essex and further afield as demand for her window displays grows year by year.

“I started during Covid by painting on the village pub’s windows,” she recalls.

“I’d been working with them on some marketing plans, and the first thing I did was paint some remembrance poppies. Then I did an advent calendar where I went in every day and wiped the number off, and painted a new picture.

“It sort of spiralled from there.”

Given she’s designing the window from the inside, Juliet is having to paint in reverse.

Five years on, window artistry is Juliet’s full time career, and over that time she’s created hundreds of designs for small businesses while building up a following on social media.

She’s one of a growing number of window artists popping up all over England, including these Christmas-themed doodles in Shropshire and some intricate wintery designs in Southampton.

An independent book shop in Maldon, Essex, has had several of Ms Townsend’s designs in recent years, featuring everything from woodland animals reading classic children’s books to specially-commissioned tie-ins for big book launches.

“People will say, ‘oh, that’s really brightened my day’, or ‘I just really like your windows’,” says owner Olivia Rosenthal.

“It really lifts the space. People often come in just to say that they look really lovely and then stay in and browse, maybe buy something.”

Former coffee shop owner Ash Field, 39, started painting his cafe windows “to bring people in” and uses the art and design skills he’d studied in the past.

His artwork at a local cafe in Leigh-on-Sea near Southend in 2018 caught people’s attention: “Lots and lots of owners wanted to have it as well, and the next year even more of them did, and it became a real thing – especially around Christmas.”

Mr Field said during the pandemic, lockdown played a part in the increase in demand as “businesses really wanted to do something to connect to the community” during a very uncertain time.

“Then it really started to go kind of national, and I went as far up as Edinburgh, we went to Wales and travelled the country painting windows – it was really exciting,” he remembers.

Mr Field said he had gained more clients since moving to Bristol, including a regular customer in Taunton in Somerset.

His designs are resplendent with gold details and textures and he explained how he did not do “any of the usual tropes – I think that would drive me mad as I feel like I’m primarily an artist”.

One of his most memorable 2025 creations was a giant mural inside a new arts centre at Southend High School for girls.

“That, by far, has got the most interest out of any window I’ve done, which shows that maybe there’s a new direction for me moving forward,” he told the BBC.

With budgets tight and increasing costs, small businesses are commonly having to tighten their belts to continue trading. So why spend money on window art?

“There’s something a little bit unexplainable about it, because it’s hard to quantify and it is a bit of a luxury to have someone paint on your windows,” says Ms Townsend, who charges a bespoke rate per day depending on the job.

“If somebody gets it, they get it. If they don’t get it, if they don’t understand the reason for doing it, then they’re never going to.

“Life’s too short for me to try and persuade them, and there’s plenty of people who do want to work with me and who do get it.”

In September, she was commissioned to paint in the windows of a major superstore in Chelmsford’s high street to celebrate Radio 2 in the Park hosting its annual weekend at Hylands Park in the city.

“I was so proud of the process and the whole experience of it. I liked my design, I liked my execution and I liked the result.

“The only bit I didn’t like was that [the shop] decided they only wanted it up for two weeks,” she laughs.

“It was the most amount of work for the least amount of time, but that made it slightly cooler. I think it’s kind of funny.”