Trade Show Display Ideas fall into two groups, firstly, ideas for the elements and layout that combine to make your exhibit and secondly ideas for innovation and creating a ‘buzz’ on and around your booth to attract more visitors.
I will deal with the first of these in this article. My next article will be on the latter, providing some innovative and novel ideas that should help you to draw a crowd. It does not matter if you have a small booth – you can still out-do the competition with a bit of imagination!
Trade Show Display Ideas – Getting Inspiration For the Design of Your Stand
A great place to start in getting some inspirational trade show display ideas is to visit some exhibitions in the market sector to see what other people are doing.
Take a digital camera with you and take some snaps of booths that you particularly like, make a note of the name of the company and which elements of their exhibits and booths you particularly liked and feel you could incorporate in your own stand.
Then take some time to go and get some new ideas of your own by visiting a couple of shows, exhibitions or conventions in a completely different market sector. For example if your company purely sells business to business, go and take a look at a show that is mainly for the general public. If you sell machinery, go and look at a show promoting kitchenware, gift items, something completely other than anything related to your own sphere.
Why? Because everyone else in your sector is also looking for out there looking for ideas – you need to think outside of the box and if you are to come up with something new, different and exciting for your stand, you need to look for new inspiration – try it, it really works!
If your budget is small and you already have an exhibition booth or pop up display, try thinking of new and innovative ways to combine the elements you already have, maybe by changing a few of the graphics or by the addition of inexpensive, pop up displays. A great web site to get ideas is the Godfrey Group. They have a design gallery in which you can tick the boxes for the type of elements you already have (or would like) the floor area your stand is to cover and up will pop some images as suggestions that might help generate some more ideas. You could also use the link in the right sidebar on this page to visit BabyCad a brilliant online design tool to help you visualise your ideas.
Another great site to look at for trade show display ideas is Nomadic Display, encompassing almost every type of stand design you could think of, a great place for inspiration. Remember that it is not necessarily the biggest budget that will have the most eye-catching booth. Being creative and innovative – even adopting a ‘make do and mend’ approach, using old frames and adding new graphics, adding eyecatching headers to existing panels, floating a blimp or hanging tension fabric structure above are all ways to make a huge difference and get your stand noticed without the big capital outlay of purchasing a new booth.
Get some great Trade Show Display Ideas Online!
Get Some Trade Show Displays Ideas for your Graphics Design
All the foregoing in this article has been about getting inspiration for the elements you will combine on your stand to create an eyecatching space – of course, all this will be for nothing if you do not get the graphic design right. With exhibitions, business shows and conventions, less is often more – and words can often get in the way of conveying the message you want to get across in the very short time you have to attract a visitor’s attention.
Graphic Design example from http://displaysonthenet.com
It is really worth employing a professional designer and choosing one who is experienced in producing graphics and who can create a harmonious display using the idea or theme you have in mind. You need someone you can work with and who will adapt what you want into something that is really going to deliver for you in terms of visitors to your exhibit. Take a look at some sites online and get an idea of the sort of work the designers do by looking at their gallery or portfolio of recent work.
There are some fundamental things when looking for inspirational design for your graphics.
First of all, any display is basically made up of three elements. Firstly, the headline – this will go at the top of the graphic, with your company name, logo, branding, the thing that identifies the company as you – this is the image that is most likely to stay in the mind’s eye of your visitor when they are thinking about your exhibit at the show.
Second, is the sub header, tag-line or strap-line. A short and simple statement getting across one single small piece of information that you want to convey. This is NOT the place to write an essay or feel you are getting your money’s worth from the display by cramming in as much information as possible – remember the KISS rule – Keep It Short and Simple!
Third, is what goes below your sub-header and this should be an image, illustration, example, short testimonial, that reinforces the message given above – again, remember to keep it short, direct and to the point.
Other elements need to combine harmoniously – and this is where a good designer is really worth their weight in gold – forget all the ”bells and whistles” for a moment, all those elements of light boxes, gimmicks, coloured lighting and so on – concentrate on BRANDING, creating a cohesive, impactful design that combines your logo and corporate colours, uses a font or combination of fonts the same as or complementary to your logo to create a really strong image that says to visitors from the other end of the aisle that it is your stand up ahead.
Think of iconic brands like Disney, Pepsi and so on – you would certainly know their exhibit from miles away and that is what you are aiming for with your stand, building brand awareness.
I hope that these trade show display ideas for layout and graphics have helped a little. Take a moment to browse through some of the other articles on this site for some more inspiration and even if your budget is small, remember that sometimes trying to do everything yourself is a false economy, getting the help of a professional can often pay for itself many times over.
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