Designing a better Trade Show BoothWritten by Rick Hendershot, M.A.
A PopUp Display is essentially a backdrop used to give your floor space definition and focus. Because it normally covers entire back "wall" of your space, a properly designed PopUp Display provides you opportunity to make a bold statement about your company and your most important product or service. This is where Trade Show booth design is important.When designing more extensive trade show booths — ones that occupy larger amounts of space —you must give considerably more attention to such things as position on floor, relationship to other exhibitors, orientation relative to other major exhibitors, traffic flow, etc. For larger booths, trade show booth design is almost a different ballgame. A larger booth must be planned in at least three dimensions, and viewed from all sides. It must provide general display values when viewed as a whole, at same time as creating as many functional display-areas-within-a-display, as space and budget allow. Ideally it will be strikingly creative, as well as beautifully functional. It will attract visitors by proclaiming your presence and your essential message, while giving you space and tools to interact with them one-on-one. A PopUp's mission in life is much less grand, but many of functional characteristics mentioned above should also be kept in mind. Of course it is possible just to throw popup up against back wall, stick a table in front of it, spread our your brochures, and away you go. But you can do better than that. First, since you want to maximize dramatic graphic impact of your PopUp, you probably won't want to clutter area directly in front of it. Yes, you have limited space to work with. But rather than putting a table directly in front of your most valuable asset (the PopUp), it is usually better to create two separate areas to either side. If you will be working booth alone, then have a "distribution area" on "incoming" side (the side most of traffic comes from), and a "sales area" on other side of your space. This will help both you and your visitors. They will be able to pick up brochures, samples, etc. from distribution area without intruding on your one-on-one conversations taking place in other area. And you will be able to have at least a semblance of "privacy" — as if this were possible at a trade show — when you pitch your more important prospects. If there are two of you working booth, then you should have two self-contained sales stations — one on either side. In other words, make use of your space intelligently. Don't clutter up middle, if you can help it. Which brings us to design of PopUp I've suggested that you PopUp should do double-duty as both a backdrop, and your most important vehicle for promoting your company's presence and your "Primary Product Message". Stand back from your display for a second and look at it from perspective of casual passerby. What is he or she most interested in?
| | The Lowly Vinyl Banner is happy to take your abuseWritten by Rick Hendershot, M.A.
In hierarchy of advertising and promotional media, lowly Vinyl Banner has to be one of most under-rated of them all. Often viewed as a temporary substitute for a real sign, or a cheap backdrop when you can't afford something better, vinyl banners rarely gets their due.As with most things, changes in technology have had a big impact on vinyl banner. Just four or five years ago if you wanted a durable and weather-resistant banner, production guy had two choices. He could either print them one color at a time using a silk screen process, or he could generate self-adhesive letters and manually stick them down on vinyl backing. The limitations of both these processes are pretty obvious. They are both time-consuming, amateurish, and usually too expensive. Including company logos, photographs, or special typefaces could only be done with much work and considerable expense. Until recently graphic designers and advertising people — creative types who like pretty pictures and exciting graphics — these people have been effectively shut out from producing economical vinyl banners for their clients. Digital Revolution has brought changes The "digital revolution" has changed all that. Printing machines are now available that can print directly on outdoor (and indoor) grade vinyl in stunningly beautiful full color. That means a graphic designer can take same files she uses for her client's magazine ad or company brochure, blow them up, and print them directly on a piece of vinyl. As a result, catalog of available vinyl materials that can be printed on has exploded in last three or four years, and printing process has been perfected to point where you can now print an beautiful full color image on a piece of virtually untearable vinyl with durable inks that will not weather or fade for many years.
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