If you’re spending the pounds you fought long and hard for at budget time, you’re going to want to make certain you put your best foot forward. It’s no good turning up looking all shabby: you’ve got to look the part. Whether it’s a small show with 100 people or a huge trade show with tens of thousands of potential punters, having the the right message and the right image is going to be part of your plan. This is why B2B exhibition graphics require extensive planning, research and above all else, high quality.
They’ll be in a variety of forms depending on the size of the show, the size of your stand space and the size of your budget. Regardless of how tight the purse strings are, there are some fundamentals you should always keep front and centre. So here goes…
Pass the table test
If it’s a pull up banner, or pop up stand, you’re likely going to end up with a table in front of your new fangled graphics. So there’s no point designing really good artwork that sits below this.
If you’re producing graphics for an exhibition or trade show, then keep front of mind that your stand will be on a platform a couple of inches off the ground. If you get your marketing right, there will be people stood on the stand – people that come in all shapes and sizes. So you really have to focus the core content at least at eye level, if not above if space allows. You want to make sure everyone gets the company message you’re intending them to get.
Less is more
When putting together graphics for an exhibition, there’s a tendency to try and cram everything in. This is a problem that scales too. Even when you have metres and metres to play with, things can end up looking cluttered if you’re not careful. You don’t need loads of text. Event visitors need just the core points. Likewise with images, a single striking image that’s well placed and well balanced is worth a million inferior ones.
Make it easy for people
A lot of people get too bogged down with themes or creative messages. Keep focused on the reality of B2B events: a good percentage of people who will see your pop up, pull up or B2B exhibition graphics won’t know your business, what it stands for and the value you provide. A simple one line overview of what your business does and a few words on the outcomes people can get from working with you will be just the tonic.
Give yourself time
In amongst the seemingly endless list of things you have to sort out for a show, it’s easy to put the stand visuals and messaging somewhere towards the bottom of the to-do list. Do this at your peril!
Don’t get graphics delivered at the last minute. We all make mistakes, and that includes me, you and the printers you’re using. If you make the print deadline with a relieved ‘phew’ and a mop of the brow, it doesn’t leave you any wriggle room if you end up in a pickle. It’s also worth bearing in mind with pull ups and pop ups there’s a relatively high dead on arrival rate owing to print quality issues, missing parts or something mechanically wrong with the configuration. Give yourself time to sort this crap out!
Use vector graphics
For those of you who’ve been in the game a while, you’re probably screaming at how obviously this one is. But we still come across this with customers on a regular basis! Where possible for large format, B2B exhibition graphics you should ‘go vector’.
Unlike “raster” image formats like JPEG,or PNG, vector images aren’t made up of the tiny squares commonly known as pixels. Rather, they’re made up of “paths” that have a start and an end point – the calculated relationship between these points is used to construct the image. This means that vector images can be scaled up in artwork to any size without loss of quality. If you tried to scale-up a JPEG image onto display graphics for a 12m wall at a tradeshow, it would likely look grainier than a box of Weetabix.
Obviously in some cases, like photography of a product or of people, vectors aren’t going to be possible. In these cases, just concentrate on getting the highest resolution possible.
We can help
If you need help creating some words, or B2B exhibition graphics, that put you head and shoulders above the competition – we can help. We have years of experience creating world class marketing materials for a range of events, from small scale shows through to multinational trade expos.
We can do everything from writing succinct sales messages through to printing eye-catching stand visuals.
Talk to us today.
