With the best will in the world, stunning exhibition stand architecture alone can’t tell the whole story of your business and its services. Marry it with thoughtful, attention grabbing graphics though and you have a match made in heaven! Suddenly, with the architecture and graphic design working in tandem, you can attract, intrigue and educate visitors with your exhibition stand and what you have to offer.
To showcase the power that these two forces in design can offer, we’ve found three brilliant examples.
Great Graphics Design
Gunite
Even though this stand only measures 3 x 2m, its particular focus on a theme makes use of the space perfectly. Gunite, a concrete repair and fire protection contractor very cleverly turned their exhibition stand into a fish and chip shop with the use of a deep fat fryer and some very smart graphic design. Their exhibiting aim was to build upon existing relationships and to find new business with a stand that would stand out amongst the other exhibitors and that would provide hospitality for visitors who engaged in conversation with the Gunite team.
They used a black and white checked floor and a pale blue brick wall graphic to create the interior of their chip shop stand and designed their own ‘chippy’ logo for extra authenticity. To advertise each range of services they offered to their customers, Gunite used three chalkboard style menus.
Look closer and Gunite even designed paper menus advertising their services, which visitors could take away with them once they’d enjoyed their chips!
CIPD
CIPD, a professional body for HR and people development, used their graphic design in an entirely different way to great effect. Their graphics were kept clean and clear so that the stand was bright and eye-catching; even from the other side of the exhibition hall.
The huge, bold purple rigged banner laden with their logo and strapline clearly signposted CIPD’s stand to visitors and made it the centrepiece of their own annual conference. Copy related to their campaign ‘Shaping the future of work’ and useful statistics were integrated beautifully with large images, using both speech bubbles and easy-to-digest infographics.
CIPD also wanted to centre their campaign around the people they help support. To do this, they opted to use a selfie booth which integrated each photo taken with the campaign message and colourful geometric graphics. The resulting campaign adverts for the brand were displayed in real-time on the stand and pre-designed versions were used around the venue to visually reinforce the CIPD brand with visitors.
Howden
Howden, designers, engineers and installers of gas and air handling equipment, wanted to use each graphic to convey a message related to the benefits and qualities of their services and products.
The clever graphic design turned complex, functional machinery into stunning pieces of art, aimed at catching the eyes of the audience. The colourful back-lit graphic at the heart of the stand is a perfect example, as it takes compression technology and turns it into an intriguing image.
To further help educate and explain the complex product range, Howden used visuals to compare their range of screw compressors, keeping copy down to a minimum.
Rethink graphic design for your exhibition stand
As these examples demonstrate, a stand’s success isn’t just down to its architecture. Graphics help to convey a campaign message to directly support your exhibiting objectives.
