Exhibition stands for humans, not snails

Designing for exhibition and display.

We've got quite a bit of exhibition stand design on at the mo. Designing for exhibition or display requires a slightly different approach.

When you are designing an exhibition (or a poster for that matter), design it as you would see it. When you walk into an exhibition hall, the stand is likely to be in the distance, so visually it will be small. So when you are designing it, view your designs small, or print it out and stand back. Does it leap out at you? Are you drawn in? Does it make you want to go up to it and find out more? If it does, then it’s likely that the punters will feel the same way.

Use this principle:
What’s that?
Where do I find out more?
What do I do now?

What that means is, the first thing the user should see, should grab their attention and make them go ‘What’s that?’. As they get drawn in, the second level of information should be apparent. Typically it is a bit of text that outlines the main ‘offer’. By now, the viewer is at the stand, or has her nose pressed up against the poster. What do I do now? Well, that depends, it could be phone the box office, visit the website or speak to the slippery salesman.

If you are designing a six foot exhibition stand or a sixty foot banner, you can’t set your document up at that size. So you have to design to scale. Keep things simple, quarter size is the norm. If in doubt, call the exhibition company that you are going to use to output the graphics, they will be more than happy to tell you what size to set the artwork up, some of them will even give you a template to work from.

Remember that humans are going to be looking at the stand. What I do, once I have set up my file, is put in a guide that is at the eye height of an average person. That way you can position important information at, or just above, eye height. I’ve seen lots of stands where the call to action is a 12pt bit of type, two inches from the floor. This will appeal to snails, if your stand is for snails, that’s fine, but not for humans.

Also, people have a habit of getting in the way of exhibition stands, they put tables and leaflet dispensers in front of the display. Find out if the client is going to have a table in front of the stand and make sure you position content high enough so that delegates can read it without looking up other peoples' skirts.