Conventional Imaging: New Directions for Trade Show Graphics

For years, pundits have been sounding the death knell for the trade show. With travel budgets being cut, as well as the Internet, Skype, GoToMeeting, and social media, who needs to travel hundreds of miles and spend thousands of dollars to network and press the flesh?

As it turns out, a lot of people. There may be fewer shows than there used to be, many have been scaled back, and the Great Recession took a toll, but the physical trade show is on the rebound.

One of the big challenges of trade show exhibitors has been the cost of shipping booth and other display materials. The products specifically being exhibited are one thing, but when the materials that comprise a booth itself can weigh hundreds of pounds, it adds a lot not only to shipping but also the drayage costs imposed by many convention centers. As a result, the biggest trend in trade show graphics today is away from heavy rigid materials.

The Fabric of Our Lives

“More and more trade show graphics are being done on fabric,” said John Rhodes, founder and president of Colorchrome Atlanta. Rhodes founded Colorchrome in 1983 as a custom photo printing company. In the 1990s, the company added wide-format digital printing, and now has clients in a broad array of markets and industries. “We have stuff hanging in fast food restaurants and we have stuff hanging in the best museums in the world—and everywhere in between,” said Rhodes.

“From the trade show company’s perspective, [printing on fabric] makes sense,” he said. We can do a 10-foot by 40-foot wall in fabric that will weigh 10 pounds. If we did that in rigid panels, it may 200 pounds.”

The combination of printed fabrics and lightweight aluminum frames makes trade show booths and displays less expensive to ship, cheaper and easier to install, and are a bit more eco-friendly than other materials. “And they look really good,” added Rhodes.

Fabrics also have other advantages in a trade show floor environment, “There’s a lot of harsh lighting, and fabric tends to absorb light rather than reflect it,” said Tom Trutna, president of Big Ink. Based in Eagan, MN, Big Ink specializes in trade show and event graphics.

New types of fabrics are also enabling all sorts of new, creative effects.

“There is definitely a hot demand for backlit,” said Natalie Whited, vice president of marketing at Orbus Exhibit & Display Group, a division of Nimlok.

Nimlok was founded in the UK in 1970 by Neil Nimmo, who had invented and patented a lock-and-grip panel system for displaying photographs. Nimlok, and later a US offshoot called Orbus, expanded into other types of display hardware as well as graphic production itself. Nimlok and Orbus merged in 2010, and the unified company sells its trade show graphics printing services largely through an extensive dealer network.

“Last fall, we introduced a new backlit fabric called Intensity,” said Whited. “It’s almost like a plastic material. It lets light illuminate it well and the graphics pop.” The new material was launched based on demand the company had been receiving for light boxes and other illuminated display elements. There are also trends in framing materials used to display the printed graphics.

“We’re definitely seeing a strong demand for tubular structures and lightweight fabric structures that cannot only be used for exhibit and display purposes, but event purposes as well,” said Whited. “Everything from hanging structures, to columns, backwall exhibits that are made out of tubular materials covered with dye-sub-printed fabrics.”

Puzzling It Out

It’s not just fabrics. The capabilities of today’s wide-format printers have enabled many other new and creative ideas.

“A lot of natural and non-traditional materials are being used,” said Trutna. “Piping, reclaimed barn wood or lumber, pallets, non-conventional, almost ‘in-the-raw’ materials, just like those that are being used in retail and home décor.”

“One of the newest trends is building something out of Falconboard,” said Eric Berger, President of Color Reflections. With facilities in Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Las Vegas, Color Reflections also began as a photo printing company before turning to wide-format digital printing.

However, added Berger, these kinds of Falconboard displays can present some design challenges. “It’s very difficult to design because it goes together like a jigsaw puzzle. You need certain cutting devices to do V cuts to allow the graphics to be folded, and you have to dado it out so it goes together like a panel system. They can become very, very intricate.”

But then working with fabric displays takes some design considerations into account. “The aluminum extrusions that are necessary have to be engineered, and the fabrics need to be dead on,” said Berger. “They need to be measured properly. You almost have to pre-construct them so you know how they go together.”

Grand Designs

Companies that produce trade show graphics typically don’t work directly with the exhibitors or end users, but rather go through a trade show company which handles the design work and hands off print-ready files. This is not to say that printers are not involved in the design process.

“[A trade show company client] will sometimes want our advice on the best way to print something or how to do it cost-effectively,” said Rhodes. “They do all the design, but we just guide them so they don’t design something that can’t be printed.”

Others, like Big Ink, have started to offer some in-house graphic design for customers who may not have the resources to work through a trade show company. “Last year, we brought an in-house designer on board we can use for some smaller clients,” said Trutna. Or even, he added, “for our large trade show customers. There’s a lot of seasonality to trade shows and when they get swamped they get really swamped. We can offer additional design resources.”

Installing for Time

Another service that trade show graphics providers offer is installation, and the approach to working with installers varies greatly. Some have their own in-house install team, some hire third-party installers, but most use some combination of the two approaches, particularly when job volume spikes.

“It runs in big surges where we have three or four different installers working on different projects one week, and the next week we won’t have any installers for a few days,” said Rhodes. “For most installs we hire subcontractors, and most of them have been working with me for years. We have really great relationships with our outside installers.”

Sometimes, there may not be a choice.

“Oftentimes in a trade show environment, you’re required to use the labor available in whatever city you’re installing in,” said Trutna. “We work with whoever our client indicates is going to do the install to make as easy and efficient as possible.” Outside labor can be very expensive, so Big Ink takes pains to organize all the pieces of a display, label them, and add assembly instructions to make it absolutely clear so the install goes as quickly as possible.

Nimock’s dealer network has the option of working with whatever installation team they’d like, or even to do installations themselves. Orbus’ central facility is partially involved in installation, said Whited. “We have a set-up team of about a dozen people who construct our exhibits and displays and sometimes they go out and supervise the installation.” Orbus works with an installation partner called Sho-Link, an I&D (installation and dismantle) services provider.

DDS: Watching and Waiting

Another hot topic in display graphics today is dynamic digital signage (DDS) and while more and more exhibits and trade show booths feature some kind of electronic and/or digital display, thus far trade show graphics printers have yet to do more than watch and wait, although are tantalized by some possibilities.

“I wish we had the resources [to get into DDS], but as a small company we don’t,” said Trutna. “When you see the digital dynamic displays there also tends to be a fair amount of static print graphics around it. I think there’s an opportunity for print providers because the two go hand in hand.” But, he added, it has to be for a good purpose. “If it’s not supporting your brand message, what’s the value of it?”

Trutna and others are proponents of other types of interactive displays whose interactivity is not electronic or digital at all. Big Ink recently worked on an event display for the SuperValu grocery franchise that featured event participants’ answers to questions hand-written on boxes and strung up on tension wires to form a “wall of goals.” Another project had event participants make yarn art on a display that would then be unfolded and used as the backdrop of the event stage. “It’s cool things like that,” said Trutna. “People are bringing old-fashioned touch and feel. It isn’t just all about high-tech and digital.”

Back in Business

At present, graphics producers are seeing events like trade shows on the rebound, for the very real reason that they still fill a need.

“We’re seeing the trade show market come back,” said Trutna. “It’s better today than it’s been in years. People still like to do business face-to-face, and trade shows are the perfect avenue for that.”