design is everything
The way in which you design your tradeshow graphics can have a huge impact on the way customers and competitors view and remember your brand. But if you’ve never designed this kind of thing before it can seem like a bit of a mystery art, so this week we thought we’d offer some useful tips that will help you to get the most out of your banner displays and pop up stands, and ensure your investment is well-spent.
• Don’t over-complicate. Make sure you focus carefully on the core things that you want your audience to take away with them – a single heading or sentence along with an image or logo can often do the trick. If your display is crowded with too many words, people simply won’t remember them all and your brand and message will be watered down.
• Stick to a few key colours. As far as colours go, less is definitely more where most tradeshow graphics are concerned. If your pop up stand or banner looks as though it has collided with a rainbow it will appear cluttered and garish, making the message difficult to decipher – keep in mind that you want to make the information on the display as easy as possible for your customers to digest. For a short article on colour theory for graphic design visit: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/08/color-theory-for-designer-part-3-creating-your-own-color-palettes/ , in particular halfway down the article: “The easiest colour schemes”.
• Use white space carefully. White space or background colour can balance out graphics and text very effectively, but you also shouldn’t allow huge ‘empty’ areas to dominate your display. Instead, try to use the negative space to draw the eye to the elements in the design that are the most important.
• Stick to a maximum of 2 or 3 different font faces (text types). Your main message should be easy to read and visualise, so use serif fonts for smaller text. For large text both serif and sans-serif fonts work well.
For additional ideas, check out other people’s graphics when you visit tradeshows – you will then be able to get a good feel for what works and what doesn’t.
