Trade show booth design that gets a buyer out of the aisle
Trade show booth design
Expo West, Sweets & Snacks, Fancy Food Show, NACS. Ten-by-ten to island.
Trade show booth design for a CPG brand comes down to about ten feet. That is the distance from the aisle to your back wall, and it is where a buyer with a lanyard and forty booths left decides whether yours is worth the detour. I design the booth, the graphics and the pieces people walk away with, to the show's specs and the fabricator's, so what prints is what you approved. I am in Orange County, a few miles from the Anaheim Convention Center, where Expo West happens every March.
What I design for a booth
Everything a visitor sees from the aisle, and everything they carry out.
- Back walls and backdrops: fabric, SEG frames, pop-ups and modular walls, designed to read at ten feet and not fight the product.
- Counters, kiosks and demo stations, wrapped so the sample and the brand are the same thing in the photo.
- Hanging signs and header graphics for the booths big enough to have them.
- Product shelving and display graphics, so the pack is the hero and the booth is the frame.
- Floor graphics, mats, table throws and the small pieces that make a ten-by-ten look finished.
- Sample trays, tasting cards, sell sheets and the handout a buyer actually keeps.
- Pre-show emails and social, badge scan follow-ups and the recap deck that turns a conversation into a meeting.
How the files get to the floor
Large format is a different discipline from a label. Bleed, resolution at size, Pantone callouts, fabric versus rigid, what the show's contractor allows you to hang and what they charge to do it. I read the exhibitor manual and the fabricator's spec sheet before I open the file, and I build to them, so there is no rebuild the week before the show.
You get print-ready PDFs per piece, named the way the fabricator asked, with a one-page spec and the native files. I stay on the thread with the printer or the booth builder until the proof is approved. If you do not have a fabricator yet, I will recommend one I have worked with.
Why me for this
I spent two years on the marketing side of a multinational food brand team, and that included the shows. I have stood in a booth at Expo West for a brand people already know, watching who walked past and who stopped, and I have seen what breaks at eight in the morning on day one. Most booth builders stop at the build. Most design teams have never stood in one. You get both from one person, at a fixed price per show.
Who this is for
Consumer packaged goods brands, food and beverage most of all, exhibiting at Expo West, Expo East, Sweets & Snacks, the Fancy Food Show, NACS, Natural Products or a regional buyer show. From a first ten-by-ten to a full island build. Also ecommerce brands making the move to retail who have never done a show and would like the first one to go well.
His impact was very deliberate, creative, agile, and immediately results oriented.
Where my work has been seen
Questions I get first
Do you build the booth, or just design it?
How far ahead do I need to start?
We already own a booth. Can you just do new graphics?
Do you do Expo West specifically?
What do I get at the end?
Goes with this
- In-store displays & POSShelf talkers, endcaps, floor displays, shippers, PDQs. Grocery, club, specialty, c-store.
- Packaging designFood and beverage, supplements, beauty, household. One SKU to a full line.
- Sell sheets & line review decksOne-pagers, line sheets, line review decks, distributor and price sheets.
Who this is for
- Startups & D2CD2C, ecommerce, new CPG, apps. Launching, or about to.
- CPG brands launchingFood, beverage, supplements, beauty, household. D2C to shelf.
- Established brandsNational CPG, retail and grocery, corporate teams. Project by project.
- Trade shows & eventsExpo West, Sweets & Snacks, Fancy Food Show and the like. Booth to follow-up.
From the journal
Carter Stoddard, Carterative
